


Sick With Desire

by skitter



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: ALSO OMG EVERY SPOILER, Adult Content, Alcohol Abuse, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It, Introspection, JUST, Loneliness, Nothing is Sacred, Oral Sex, Sexual Tension, Spit Kink, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships, Vaginal Sex, Vignette, You've been warned, everything is consenual at all times i promise, fuck there is a lot of angst, i hesitate to call it a slow burn but its not a fast one, its in chronological order its just kind of in snippets, just every single possible spoiler for this game, kind of, privacy, so much, so much foul language, tbh the game makes it that way, the spit thing is like four lines i promise, this is literally just two disaster people unable to cope without one another, v is so fucking lonely, we WILL be saying no to the canon endings they are NOT welcome here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:35:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitter/pseuds/skitter
Summary: “Don’t make me say it, V. Life is sad enough as is. Don’t need another fuckin’ reminder of all the things we have to sacrifice.” Johnny flickers out of view and she is stuck staring at the space he once occupied. Is this what it will feel like, when he leaves that last time? Her just carrying around a constant reminder of the absence of him. There was a hole in her brain, once, and his data chip filled it. What will she put there when he’s gone?---a story told in snippets of what two people become when there is nothing left to cling to but each other. loyalty and devotion are two sides of the same coin, a coin they're both watching spin, waiting to see how it falls.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Comments: 247
Kudos: 658





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! I am in Johnny Silverhand hell and I had to do something.  
> I've been in the fanfiction world for ~15 years but I haven't posted anything online in close to 10. I'm normally not one for sharing what I write, but idk, this just worked. Please be gentle, haha, I am a little rusty. The fic is complete. I had no beta, so any terrible grammar mistakes are all my own. I will be posting it regularly, maybe every day? It's honestly not very long. Probably four chapters? Possibly five. I put four but that's probably a lie. I want to space em out a bit, just to give the fic room to breathe.  
> Enjoy <3
> 
> EDIT 12/23: I have procured the lovely and indispensable @CuteAsAMuntin as a beta. I'm going to be going back and re-uploading the chapters with her influence and keen eye worked in.

> _ Consume my heart away; sick with desire _
> 
> _ And fastened to a dying animal _
> 
> _ It knows not what it is; and gather me _
> 
> _ Into the artifice of eternity. _
> 
> \- “Sailing to Byzantium,” William Butler Yeat s

* * *

You can get used to anything, if you experience it often enough.

Loneliness is the only constant in V’s life. Where some people hold their families, or chooms, or gangs, or money, or whores, she puts nothing. There is probably a fun, fucked up, psychological reason for that, but she’s too tired most days to tease it out. When she was little, she read about house pets, an outdated concept of animal domestication for no apparent purpose other than enjoyment of their companionship. Of all the ones she had read about, cats were her favorite. For a long time, she had thought that if she could get a cat and put it in that empty void, it would fix all her problems. Ridiculous, really, in retrospect. 

The first time she sees a cat, it’s the last day of her life before the relic. They’re supposed to be virtually extinct in Night City, but it lets her pet it for a few minutes before it tries to bite her.

As she grows up, she tries romantic love, attempts to connect to other people the way she’s told it’s supposed to happen, but it doesn’t fit much better. They have too many expectations, and V is terrible at giving away parts of who she is. The only solid foundation she knows beyond loneliness is herself. One of the few things she can remember about her aunt, before she died, is the old lady making her swear never to lose sight of who she is. “Knowin’ yourself is the best way to makin’ it out there. Be sure of who you are, sweetheart. People can’t take from you what you’re unable to lose.”

She carries that solitary piece of decent advice close. Later on, after Johnny (And can’t her whole life be separated like that now? Before the Johnny Era, and After Silverhand.), the irony is not lost on her.

Maybe that’s why this happened to her. Maybe, in the end, there were too many things that she was capable of losing and still moving forward. Sad, really, considering she possesses little aside from her meat and an uncanny knack for survival.

Of course, Jackie and Mama Welles change all that. For a time, afterwards, V feels like she finally gets it. This is what people get out of bed for, every day. The sense of total belonging, like for the first time, the void where her loneliness sleeps isn’t just filled, but repaired. She’s never had a best friend, but Jackie doesn’t care. He needles his way past her defenses and gets her to open up for the first time in her life. She feels loved in a way that, up until this point, seemed unattainable.

She thinks, if she’s honest with herself, that the only reason she didn’t put the iron to her head and pull the trigger when she woke up in a world without Jackie was to spite Johnny — the satisfaction in knowing that’s all he wants her to do, at first. As time creeps ever forward, she finds herself with a new reason to live. She can’t die, or everything Jackie sacrificed will have been for nothing. She lives, because she owes it to her best friend. It’s what he would want for her. Silverhand’s compliance never truly mattered, at least in the beginning. She would survive, and she would murder her way to the top of the city, if it meant reaching the big leagues for him.

* * *

“You are such a stupid fucking bitch. Tt is astounding that you’re not flatlined, limp fuckin’ body rottin’ in a can somewhere.”

“I’d tell you to fuck off and die, but you already did that, huh? Really can’t commit to a goddamn thing, can you, Silverhand?”

“Fuck you, cunt.”

“If only you were so lucky.”

* * *

“I cannot believe you’re this soft inside, V. No wonder you feel so lonely. God, all you do is give and give, and Night City is a black hole, kid. It will never be sated.”

“They need my help, Johnny. I haven’t gotten this far in life by bein’ an asshole, despite your foolproof Johnny Silverhand Life Advice.”

“Never failed me before,” he sniffs.

“You do realize that you’re dead, right?”

“It’s all a matter of perspective, cunt. I _wish_ I were dead, if only to get out of this shithole you call a brain. Rottin’ in Mikoshi has to be better than this.”

“Feel free to leave at any time, dick.”

“Nah, this meat likes me. Why not take those nice pills Misty gave ya, put us both out of our misery? You get to die on your own terms, and I finally get to fuck your hot neighbor.”

“What makes you think she’d fuck you?”

“Impressive cock, V.”

“Impressive cock. That we don’t have. Because those aren’t the parts I got.”

“Give me free reign, kid, and that won’t be an issue.”

“Right.”

“Impressive cock is a way of mind, V.”

“God, someone put me out of my fuckin’ misery.”

* * *

“Don’t do it, V.” She considers the choices before her and picks the one he hates.

* * *

They are staring down the barrel of a gun, the twisted ruin of the Maelstrom gonk’s face floating out of focus just beyond it. She thinks that this is it, just as he declares that no, it most certainly is not. She finds herself two feet to the left, a shotgun blast echoing loudly in her ears. They don’t talk about the implications.

Not that he saved her — that’s not that big of a deal. He’s irritatingly helpful in combat situations. Neither of them is entirely sure how his perception works the way it does, but the closest real-life comparison they can agree on is something like a wildly complex, detailed braindance. She considers telling Judy about it just for the educational value alone. She doesn’t, because that would also mean telling her about Johnny, and that feels, for whatever reason, more deceitful than keeping a secret that doesn’t feel like it belongs only to her. Regardless of the specifics, Silverhand’s awareness of their surroundings makes any brawl decidedly easier to manage, especially stacked with her affinity for shadows and quickhacks.

No, what they don’t talk about is her loss of control and his gain. He physically moves her. It’s a first, and it is not a good sign. She drinks herself into oblivion for the next two days, and he is uncharacteristically merciful in not commenting on it. It’s progress, across both sides of the shit spectrum that has become her life.

* * *

It’s not until they are on the roof of the Perales’s penthouse, closely following the path of some suspicious wires, that she realizes she enjoys running these stupid fucking jobs with him. He notices shit she would never, _could_ never, detect, like the look on people’s faces when they aren’t facing her, or that one surveillance cam, always perched above her line of sight. More than that, his running commentary, no matter how irritating and rude it gets, has become so familiar that the few times he doesn’t have anything to add, she is jarred by the reminder of how silent and alone her life had been before he took up residence in her brain.

His sardonic, outrageously noir lines as they trail behind Pepe’s potentially-unfaithful wife have her chewing her lip to keep from exploding into laughter, despite berating him at every turn. This is developing into something like a friendship, and she cannot handle what that means. Instead, after Pepe’s beloved is found to be faithful, albeit plagued by her own secrets, V once again gets so drunk she can’t see. Johnny tells her stories of his idiotic life before Arasaka, and, this time, she laughs out loud.

* * *

“It’s delayed.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“Your experiences bein’ translated into something I can feel.”

“So, what? I get shot, and it takes you twenty minutes to realize it?”

“As if your bitchin’ would ever cease.”

She looks down at the hot dog in her hand, before returning her focus to where he leans against the railing.

“The first time, every first time for me, from you, is delayed. It takes the chip a while to figure it out, is all.”

“Why are you tellin’ me this?”

“Because you’re not eatin’ that hot dog for you, bitch. And I want you to know it will take a minute for me to appreciate it.”

It dawns on her that she is physically in the process of eating the hot dog. The hot dog is in her mouth. She hates hot dogs. A wave of nausea rolls through her.

“Do not fuckin’ puke, please. Holy fuckin’ hell, V.”

“Why the fuck am I eatin’ this?”

"Because I wanted one, and your body felt like complyin’.” 

She gives him a withering glare and throws the offending food in the nearest trash can.

“Well that’s just a fuckin’ waste, you dumb bitch.”

“Stop fuckin’ doing that, Silverhand. It’s not cute.”

“Everything I do is cute, cunt.”

She laughs.

* * *

She hasn’t gotten laid in months. At first, the grief and rage of Jackie’s death, coupled with the consequences of the chip’s insertion into her brain, really left no space for needs of the carnal variety, even if she had found herself with the desire. Then, it’s that the thought of even touching _herself_ with Silverhand lounging around in her skull-meat is mortifying beyond comprehension. His endless need, his absolute fucking inability to shut his mouth, has left her perfectly aware of how filthy he can be. If it is not some reminder of her “decent-sized ass”, it’s the comparison of her tits to “this one cunt I fucked on stage, during some other gonk band’s set.” If he’s not detailing her fuckability factor (8/10 with her mouth shut, 3/10 if she dares speak), he is instead discussing what he would do to the women around them, unaware of the digital ghost perving on them from inside her head.

He was literally so fucking intolerable over Panam’s ass that it got to the point that she threated to kill them both just to shut him up. Her well-endowed friend’s preposterous curves and categorical disinterest in women left her feeling just as starved, and she didn’t need him voicing these desires on top of it. 

He tells her to go for it anyway, despite V knowing damn well that Panam considers her a very good friend and nothing more. She only discusses the possibility once before shutting it down. Her dreams that night are hot and torturous. They don’t see Panam for two weeks after that, a self-imposed quarantine.

They meet Rogue for the first time, and the desire that Johnny unleashes in V’s body is intoxicating. The indefensible, aching heat between her legs is torturous, and she has to avoid Rogue just to get shit done. He tells her constantly all about how great of a lay his ex-whatever was, wonders if “her perfectly aged pussy still has it,” almost daily. If there is a hell designed specifically for V, she is living it every goddamn day. On top of the fact that Rogue is significantly older than her, she’s just not V’s type. Judy, however, with her petite, lithe shoulders, is.

Johnny forever lacks tack, of course, and doesn’t understand why she doesn’t just “fuckin’ go for it, you sorry bitch,” from the moment they meet. He has no concept, either willingly or otherwise, of compassion when it comes to his desire for her to get their proverbial dick sucked. Judy’s best friend (“If you think for one second, they didn’t fuck, you’re even more gonked than I originally thought.”) has recently undergone virtually indescribable trauma, and Judy is scrabbling to pick up the pieces. To put any move on her just now would be beyond soulless, and, despite their super fun lil’ run-in with Soulkiller, V’s own is still clinging to the meat of her identity.

None of this really helps, of course, in handling the fact that V hasn’t had a single goddamn orgasm in weeks. Thank fuck, they didn’t need to establish bathroom boundaries, but Johnny has no problem wandering around in her peripherals every time she showers. At first, it’s creepy to have him see her naked, but eventually, she accepts it as part of her unavoidable ugly reality. Like he constantly fucking reminds her, he can “smell the shit she smells and see all the same fucked up sights she does whenever he feels like ‘pluggin’ in to V-TV.” It was a fight to get him to leave her alone when she tries to take a proper bath; a fight that she ultimately loses because he “didn’t see the fuckin’ point in modesty”.

Just the idea of asking him to fuck off for half an hour so she could rub one out and take a nap is so absurd that she finds herself snorting around a mouthful of noodles when it pops into her head. From what she can tell, their “thoughts”, whatever the fuck those constitute, remain their own. This is crucial because, if she is totally honest with herself, it’s been so long since she’s been fucked, that even _he_ has developed a certain charm. She gags on her next bite of noodles, and he tells her that if she “flatlines them with some 2-bit street pho, he’s going to revive her once more just to beat her back to death.”

The moment Johnny meets River, he hates him. Going on and on with his “all cops are bastards” bullshit, as if she, a survivor of an incalculable amount of police brutality herself, needs the reminder. This vitriol is approaching borderline uncharacteristic at this point, which is saying something. At least his hatred has cooled into something more manageable for them both.

It takes her a while, but she realizes the intensity of his response is because he is afraid she will fuck River. While Johnny never struck her as a particularly homophobic piece of shit, she knows that the prospect of “his” first sexual encounter since dying being with a man is not high on his list of “acceptable bullshit.” Maybe he _could_ have fucked anyone he wanted, gender and genitals be damned, but it was clear that, like he’d told her, he had a definite preference for “the wet heat of a tight cunt and a handful of good tits.”

They’ve been on edge with one another for the last few days; she is pretty sure because their last option aside from Goro’s insanity involves the Voodoo Boys and some BBS, cyberspace shit. Every time she mentally exerts herself beyond the pale of what is considered “normal,” the relic degrades a little more. Waking up with blood in her mouth is getting far more commonplace. The timer seems to be running down even faster, and it makes them both pissy. After a particularly fucked up mission involving River, his nephew, and a literal serial killer, V makes her choice.

Normally — God what the _fuck_ is her normal — her and the dead rockerboy living in her head spend the evening after a long, difficult mission unwinding with some booze (“If you make me drink vodka one more time, bitch, I’m shoving us off the nearest roof.”), shooting the shit or watching some stupid TV program while trying to navigate the insanity that their entwined existence has become. When they get back to her apartment that night, however, she is wound up higher than a corpo with a stick up his ass, and she needs the kind of release that only an orgasm can bring. Her body feels less and less like something that unequivocally belongs to her, and perhaps part of the impulse is simply a base desire to reaffirm that control.

“Johnny, go fuck off for a while, yeah?” She tries as hard as fucking possible to sound casual, disinterested about it. He lives inside her skin, though, so he knows this.

“Got a hot date? Gonna let that fuckin’ cop stick his skinny little dick inside you, gonna gush all over his tight leather?”

Her hands, busy tugging her boots off, still. She wasn’t, but she is so goddamn sick of him in this moment that she finds herself reaching for her phone, the text shooting off to River before she can think twice. If Johnny notices his influence, he makes no outward indication.

“Yup. So, unless you wanna hang around and get a firsthand account of what it feels like to get screwed by the perfectly-sized arm of the law, fuck. Off.” She doesn’t even know what she’s going to say to River, but the thick-thighed hulk of a man had been very obviously interested, if his wandering gaze, heavy enough that she could practically feel it, was any indication. At least, that was the case before the serial killer. Still, fuck Johnny and his constant fucking need to involve himself in every part of her life.

“Holy pissin’ fuck, you’re serious. V, no. I’m not about to get — ”

“ _You_ aren’t about to do jackshit, Silverhand. Last I checked, this meat suit was still _mine_ , and I’m gonna do to it what I want. And what I want is to be bent over a table getting absolutely fucking railed. Seeing as you’re in no state to do it for me, shut the fuck up and leave,” It is the filthiest thing she has ever said to him, especially with even a passing reference to her own opinions on _his_ fuckability. The discomfort and mortification blooming in her throat go a long way to convincing her it’s not desire she feels rising up from deep within some foreign well of her body. She doesn’t even know why she says it. Up until that moment, he’s been a nonentity in the sexual aspects of her life. He’s attractive in that “arrogant prick” kind of way, but he is also not real, and she really fuckin’ hates him, so — 

None of that matters anymore though, apparently. Johnny, having long since perfected the Aloof Asshole Lean™ on literally every surface of her — their — _her_ apartment, stiffens, and she notices the shift in his behavior instantly.

Corporeal eyes meet a digital gaze across the room. For once, Johnny isn’t wearing his stupid sunglasses, but his expression is uncharacteristically unreadable. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she feels a ravenous void rising up to swallow her whole, her face hot with equal parts shame and hunger . He stands up, and, while she hasn’t feared him beyond those first few dark hours when he was literally slamming them face-first into her window, something akin to terror flickers across her skin. This is not how this was supposed to go. In a heartbeat, he’s left his usual spot along the wall and has glitched into view inches from her. For two people living a very cozy existence in one body, they don’t tend to get all that close. It’s probably not real, but she feels the phantom cold of his metal arm radiating into the space around them.

“What makes you think I’m in no state to do it for you?” He makes a point to drag his gaze slowly up her body. “Had no clue you felt that way, V. Seemed too stuck up, really,”

“I don’t feel that way or any other, Silverhand.” 

His responding laugh is husky, low, and it makes her skin sweat. “C’mon, you know you can’t lie to me. I know what it tastes like, now.”

“What _what_ tastes like?” Dangerous, treacherous territory.

“This yawning pit inside you called ‘desire.’”

She is frozen in uncertainty. When her phone rings, she jumps so fast she nearly slams into the wall. By the grace of what-the-fuck-ever, she doesn’t lose her grasp on it.

Before he can say anything else, she turns and answers the call. River wants to come over. Her hands are shaking. Her entire fucking body is a livewire, and she’s a bit shocked that she is able to “casually” invite the former detective to her apartment.

“Be there in 20,” and then its silence again. It’s weird, physically reacting to a person who isn’t there. As far as anyone not trapped in her shitty brain is concerned, Johnny is not still standing behind her, his black eyes unreadable and expression ruthless. The hairs on the back of her neck rise all the same, and she takes a deep breath. When she turns around, he’s gone. As gone as he can be, anyway, the soft static of his mental presence dulled to almost nonexistence. No other interaction they’ve ever had has ended like this, and she is unnerved by it.

She spends the next 20 minutes silently cleaning the apartment and taking a shower. She would never admit it out loud for fear of sounding, well, insane. But as the last drops of hot water run themselves down her back, she feels a cold finger chase their path. She turns, but he isn’t there. Then, River is knocking on the door, and she is already pulling on her clothes, and whatever just happened between her and Silverhand goes into a box because she doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with it right then (or ever, if she’s lucky). River looks delicious leaning against her doorframe, and V forces all her senses to focus on his very real, very physical, very present body.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you to everyone who commented and left kudos. Literally made my whole day nbd.  
> Not much to say about this chapter, it's filthy tbh, but it's not crazy long. Porn isn't really my thing, and writing it has always been a challenge.  
> Either way, thanks for reading <3
> 
> EDIT 12/27: now beta'd by the lovely @CuteAsAMuntin

In the end, River doesn’t even fuck her. In an effort to calm both her nerves and his shyness, they get to talking, and soon it’s 4:30 am and the sun is inches away from rising. He tries to hold back his fourth yawn in as many minutes when V decides to call it. He’s a good man, but River doesn’t strike her as the “booty-call” type. So, with a chaste kiss on the cheek, he leaves her to the silence and the phantoms of her empty apartment. 

For a moment, she considers speaking to the elephant-sized ghost looming inside her brain, but sleep is insistently pulling at her seams, so she opts to crawl into bed instead. It’s quiet, or what passes for quiet in a shitty shoebox of an apartment in Night fucking City could hope to be, anyway. Johnny tends to leave her alone when she’s this tired, having yet to find fun in wrecking her sleep cycle. As she tries to force herself into the welcome oblivion of sleep, that constant throb of desire has settled into an insistent heat between her legs that beats in time with her heart. She’s about ready to shove her face into a pillow and start screaming, if she didn’t think it might tug Silverhand back from whatever cranny he tucked himself into whenever she slept.

Has she ever been this fucking unhinged before in her life? She’s never wanted for sexual partners before, but the dead dude in her grey matter makes looking for love a bit of a challenge. “Hi, I’m V! I have a dead, angry rockerboy-terrorist who lives inside my head and makes snarky comments about every single thing that happens. Also, he is slowly killing me and taking over my body. Wanna get dinner sometime?”

It’s absurd, and it brings tears to her eyes, and she is sure she is losing her grasp on reality. At least a quick dose of some sleep-inducing chem pushes her past the point of awareness and into a space beyond.

She dreams that Johnny fucks her like she’s never been fucked before. He is rough, sharp-edged, and crass. His calloused hand and metal fingers pin her to walls, press into the softest parts of her flesh. V can’t even get out a whimper before his tongue is in her mouth and she is positively drowning in desire. Long, black hair is wrapped around silver fingers, a haphazard attempt at control. They don’t bother to properly remove their clothing. He whispers unintelligible filth into her ear, and his hot breath on her neck is very real and even more intoxicating. For once, the taste of blood is a relief, his lip splitting beneath her vicious teeth. Cold metal plunges into her, pulling out warm and slick and dragging roughly across her clit. There is a whimper, an expletive falling from someone’s mouth — she’s not sure whose and she doesn’t care — and he turns her around, trapping her between the unrelenting hardness of his cock and the cold plastic of her shabby excuse for a table. He fucks into her like it’s the very last thing he will ever do, like a man one bad day from death. It’s the best sex she’s ever had in her life. The orgasm that finally envelops her detonates like a star going nova, and she wakes to early afternoon sun and drenched underwear.

It has been 11 years since her last wet dream, but she’s not going to complain. She’s sure the smile on her face is positively idiotic. Silverhand doesn’t comment on the state she’s in when he finally shows up after she wakes fully. V works very hard to convince herself it’s because he doesn’t notice, or care. They don’t speak about their weird interaction from the night before, but now more than ever, his eyes are on her. 

* * *

“Why the merc life, V? Not really suited for it, if you ask me.”

“Never did ask, Silverhand.” She reloads and looks around the corner. No reinforcements just yet. “Besides, how the fuck do you know what I’m suited for?”

“I spend every fuckin’ second of my shit existence in your head, V. I know you better than anyone.”

“God, what a depressing analysis of my life.”

"Yeah, well, you’re the one who chose to do it this way.”

“Do what this way? Live? I told you, I don’t want your fucked-up life advice. All you ever fuckin’ did was alienate everyone who ever loved you and drop a nuke in the middle of the fuckin’ city. And it didn’t amount to shit in the end, did it?”

“Oh, fuck off. Why a merc?”

“Because I’m good at it. Why part rockerboy, part terrorist, all asshole?”

“Same reason, I guess. Well, that, and the unbelievable amounts of pussy I pulled.” 

She rolls her eyes and hits the Maelstrom that steps into her cybernetic vision with an Overload quickhack. He spasms and falls. Satisfaction creeps through her.

“Wonder if you’ve got any bastard kids.”

“Why, thinkin of playin’ Mommy? Or maybe, you can fuck ‘em, pretend they’re me.”

“You’re eighty-fuckin’-eight, Johnny. Any kids you may or may not have are geriatric at this point.”

“I’m 32, you dumb fuck.”

“Sure, babe”

“Rogue looks fuckin’ good for an old bitch, doesn’t she?”

“Do we gotta do this again? I don’t want to fuck your ex-gilf. It’s not gonna happen.”

“Jealousy is such a bad look for you, V. Don’t worry, we both know I’m all yours.” 

If she could make any noise without revealing her position, she would scoff. “What a lucky girl I am, getting saddled with you.”

“You know how many women would kill to spend this much time with me?”

“No, because they’ve all fuckin died, you goddamn fossil.”

“I’m an icon, kid. A symbol.”

“Yeah, of stupidity and hubris. Now shut the fuck up and look for that netrunner for me. I’m hungry and want this shit job over with.”

* * *

Cyberspace is a fucking hellscape of non-Euclidean geometry and eldritch terrors. V can still feel the alien press of Alt and the Blackwall on her psyche, long after they’ve left the bodies of the Voodoo Boys in their data fortress. The deal with NetWatch was dumb, but she doesn’t fucking appreciate being lied to. She’s had enough with unknown viruses being set loose into her body like ticking time bombs, thanks. Turns out, one parasite is enough.

If she is honest with herself, it had been uncomfortable as fuck working her way through Silverhand’s alcohol- and drug-hazed memories. Whether or not they are willing to talk about it, the two of them are friends at this point. They’ve yet to say it out loud, but she knows that they are, in the same way she can tell when he wants her to stand in a certain patch of sunlight, or he knows he needs to be nice to Judy. They’ve come so far already, shared so many experiences, that it had to end in either friendship or murder. In no other world would they even get along — his unending need to sexually objectify and demean her would lose all charm without the knowledge of who he could be beyond that. But she does know, if she stops to consider it, who he is when he leaves all the cocky, arrogant posturing to the wayside and behaves like a real person. He may be fueled by rage, with violence as his first, and often only, answer to a situation, but he is also right — at least about the fucked world and the grand scheme of things. His execution is absolutely terrible, but his withered, black heart is in the right place most of the time.

This makes his treatment of Alt upsetting, and the subsequent disaster that is the end of the netrunner’s life becomes even harder to live through. She tells herself watching him fuck Alt, feeling every single meeting of their flesh as if she were the one pinning her to a wall and burying her face between the blonde’s legs, that she isn’t bothered by this. Whatever she’s feeling is something to untangle later. Or never. 

The entire assault on Arasaka is a shitshow, and she wonders how he even got out of there alive. As the scene fades to black, her beating the shit out of the media guy with Johnny’s silver fist, she is surprised at just how fucking sad his life was. For a man literally surrounded by adoration, he sure knew how to isolate every single one of them. V is pretty sure he can feel her pity, when he questions her in that cyberspace limbo afterwards, because he loses his shit pretty soon after they resubmerge. 

Johnny is furious they are even considering Goro’s plan. She couldn’t possibly give fewer fucks. The attacks are getting worse, the copper tang of blood permanently coloring her tongue. The parade is in less than a week, and it feels like it’s all they have left. Hellman was a bust and apparently Alt can’t do shit without access to Mikoshi. They need more and Goro can provide, so V takes whatever she can get. Every time she and Silverhand speak for the remainder of the day, it devolves into a screaming match. He calls her an unlovable, stupid cunt who deserves to have her body taken as a consequence of her own stupid fucking choices. She calls him a narrow-minded, egotistical, has-been whose “greatest work” didn’t even matter in the end. The day ends on a terrible note, and she is reminded now more than ever why she needs to be fucking rid of him.

* * *

“No.”

“Yes.”

"You’re a crazy fuckin’ bitch, if you think I trust your hackin’ skills enough to get on this coaster.”

“You don’t have a say in it, dick. Besides, would it kill you to have a shred of fun?”

“What I consider fun doesn’t equate to ancient fuckin’ amusement park rides, kid. Let’s go get pissed, fuck a whore or two. See what Rogue’s up to. Fuck, V, let’s burn something to the ground!” He is forever leaning on railings to one side of her or the other like the old man he is, and now is no different. She closes up the electrical panel, hearing the soft whir of the old ride coming back to life. She is so fucking proud of herself that even he can’t ruin it.

“It’s okay if you’re scared, Johnny. I won’t tell anyone.” They are both far beyond the ability to goad each other with such basic jibes, but, for some reason, he rises to the occasion. Her smile widens.

“Bet you scream like a little girl.” His voice is gruff, but she knows his face well enough to see the smirk hiding at the edges of his mouth.

It’s every bit as amazing as she was hoping. For those few minutes, they let go. There is no relic, no brain-deteriorating condition that has her life on a timer and his dependent on the theft of something he doesn’t want to take. There is no blood in her mouth, no hatred in his eyes. They are two people, freed if only for a moment, from the prisons of their life. She laughs like she hasn’t in years. He laughs like she’s never heard before. Something sharp and oh so small lodges itself, then, in the space around her heart, but she’s not sure what and is too wrapped up in the simple joy of the coaster to care. Whales play just beyond the water line, and for this small pocket of time, Johnny and V are just two people, enjoying each other’s company under the sun. It ends too quickly, and the absence of it reminds them both of how heavy their reality weighs.

She dreams of him again, that night. It's less feverish, more languorous. His long form is draped across her bed, gloriously naked from the waist up in the soft, yellow light. He holds himself in his hand, cock hard and beaded with pre-cum. There is no hesitation in her movements as she kneels before him, settling between his legs. She’s never been a huge fan of sucking dick. Most dudes don’t understand how to toe the line between appreciation and unnecessary aggression. Johnny is perfectly balanced, of course. His cold, silver fingers snake their way into her black hair, pulling it just hard enough to hurt. He calls her filthy, degrading names as she works her mouth around him, and the way his breath hitches and his back arches has her pulse racing. Never before has she relished so totally the act of giving head, but she’s sure she would suck Johnny’s cock for as long as he would let her. She feels him tense beneath her, release imminent, and, like the good whore he is proclaiming her to be, she takes him as far into her throat as she can bear, swallowing every last drop. He stands and looks down at her, settled between his legs. She looks back up at him with something uncomfortably adjacent to reverence. Without a word, he pulls her to her feet and shoves her on the bed.

V knows what is about to happen, but in this torturous dreamscape she is incapable of escaping it. If she didn’t like sucking dick, she avoided the task of getting her pussy ate like submitting to it was an actual act of violence. Men were terrible at it, and she was still too shy to pursue women aggressively enough to ask for it. Silverhand doesn’t give a shit, just like in real life. Dream!Johnny is just as consuming as his waking self. Her body yields to him immediately, like it already has been for months now, like it was fucking made to do just that, and he buries his face in her drenched cunt. Another hand wrapped in black hair, another string of filthy words. Her legs fucking quake with pleasure, and the cold shock of his dextrous metal fingers pumping in and out of her as he sucks on her clit pushes her over the edge in seconds. A detonation, ghost-like afterimages of the once-tall Arasaka tower dance behind her eyes as she comes all over Johnny Silverhand’s mouth and eponymous fingers. He laughs lowly into her thigh and presses a kiss to the skin there, lingering for a heartbeat too long. It’s the only thing that’s ever passed for intimacy between the two of them, and it burns away the post-orgasm fog. He meets her gaze, just his eyes visible over the mound at the apex of her thighs. She remembers that small, sharp something lodged in her heart as it twists ever so slightly. It’s cruel of her brain, cruel and unnecessary, to cast him in this role he will never take.

When she wakes to an overcast sky, her heart feels like it has already been broken. She has seen the end of this play, so she knows how the story inevitably ends. Johnny, realizing she’s awake, is already lounging on her windowsill like some cocksure black cat. They both know he can feel the shame and hurt rolling over her. It’s difficult to meet his gaze. He raises one eyebrow, and she throws him a grim smile before getting up to shower. It’s difficult not to cry under the spray of hot water, but she manages. Loneliness is her oldest friend. She should know better than to reach beyond her means.

* * *

“Robert, okay? Christ, it makes me ill just sayin’ it out loud.”

“I can beat that.”

“What the fuck? How is this even a contest?”

“I don’t even know mine.”

He gives her a look of absolute incredulity.

She snorts.

“Fuck off.” A pause. “Oh shit, you’re fuckin’ serious.” He is like a kid at Christmas. “How the fuck do you not remember your own name?”

“Dunno, just don’t. V might be my actual name. It’s all anyone has ever called me, anyway. No fuckin’ records when you’re a street kid, no family to ask. My aunt called me sweetheart. Everyone else called me V.”

“This is the saddest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever heard in my life, holy shit.” He laughs at her and she joins in.

“Fuck, right?”

“It’s a terrible fuckin’ name. Its gotta stand for something, though.”

“Violet,” they say simultaneously, making her flinch. Heat creeps up into her face, and for the first time since she’s met him, he looks genuinely uncomfortable.

“I don’t even like the color violet,” is all she can say.

“It was a flower, once. Back when there were flowers still.” As if his explanation makes this any less weird.

She hums noncommittally, and he flickers out of existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ gosh-emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter
> 
> Come say hi <3


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm a senior english-lit analysis major and boy is it showing. 90% of this fic is just exposition and i am so sorry. I use the lil snippets in between to add some actual dialogue because otherwise it would look like an essay.  
> As always, everyone's comments and kudos made my night. Legit did not expect anyone to read this, let alone love it so much so uh <3 <3  
> Enjoy!
> 
> also, yes i've updated the chapter count. we are lookin at maybe 6 now. who knows. every time i go to post a chapter and do some last minute edits, i wind up adding like a page of shit to this fic. at this rate its anyones guess ><
> 
> EDIT 12/27: now beta'd by the invaluable @CuteAsAMuntin

“Behind you,” and she is ducking before he can finish the words. This stupid gig for Padre is not going how they expected. At this point, she just wants to get out of this with her limbs intact. Any efforts towards stealth and sabotage have gone completely out the window. All because they were too goddamn caught up in arguing about the way she holds her gun, of all things, to pay attention when her daemon lost control over the cameras.

“If we get out of this, Silverhand, I am putting you in a fuckin’ muzzle! D’you hear me?” Scavs are fucking everywhere, pouring out of the warehouse walls like roaches. She fires blindly into the darkness, praying she hit something vital. She is trying to get to the staircase on the southern wall to get the fuck out of this trap, but their path is blocked by about 12 gun-wielding assholes. 

“Why is it my fault that you’re so goddamn bad at this? Who taught you how to shoot, bitch? A fuckin’ joytoy?” He deliberately stands in her line of sight, and a bullet whizzes through his form. If fucking only.

“No one taught me, you raging asshole.” She lobs her last grenade at the crowd before her and uses the momentary mayhem as an out, sprinting to the staircase. A burly scav lurks just beyond the range of her sensors, reaching out of the dark to wrap himself around her. She screams in tandem with the parasite in her head, writhes in the behemoth’s grip. The scav is a hulk of muscle, and she kicks blindly at his torso beneath her to no avail. He is so much stronger than her that it’s embarrassing. Her arms are pinned to her sides, her guns useless. Now, more than ever, she wishes she had enough money for those fuckin’ Mantis Blades. Fuck, they would be handy. The scav is dragging her, slowly but surely, back into the firefight.

She throws her head back and slams it into his nose. The pain from the relic is blinding, and Johnny swears in her ear. There is a static crackle echoing in her skull and her stomach rolls as blood and bile rise in her throat. Still, the scav’s grip is loosened, so she does it again. It’s certainly hurting her more than it is him, but she is desperate to break free. One more smash of her cranium into the meat of his face and he relents. They both collapse, and she’s free. Her vision swims with glitches as she rolls over to hack up blood. The other idiot gang members are looking for her, and her window of opportunity is rapidly closing. The hulk besides her groans shifts.

“No time for this!” Johnny issues his warning, already aware of her next move, but she doesn’t care. She reaches blindly into the dark and comes back with some scrap of metal. Forcing herself to her feet, she spits the viscous red liquid out of her mouth and raises the weapon above her head. She beats the hulking scav’s face in, taking out weeks of aggression on his ugly fucking features. She is screaming her head off, and their position is revealed again. It might have been overkill.

“V!” Silverhand’s voice, panicked, in her ear, and then her legs are pulling her to the right as a barrage of bullets rain down upon where she once stood, ripping the scav corpse into pieces. Another scav with a nasty-looking shotgun stands in front of her. Again, Johnny is saving her life. He is going to be intolerable after this. She tosses the bloody and bent metal shard at the gunman and makes for the stairs. A bullet hits her shoulder, but she is fairly certain it is just a flesh wound. She flings the door open and sprints into the night. She was smart enough to stash her bike and so is on it in moments, fleeing, before any more scavs show up to put more holes in her.

She eventually screeches to a halt in the hills of North Oak to catch her breath and assess any damages. The bike topples into a streetlamp as she turns in circles trying to view the extent of her wounds. Her headache is monstrous, and both of her arms are bruised. The wound on her shoulder is just a small missing chunk of skin, thankfully, and nothing serious. Her favorite shirt is ripped to shit, and, worse, she lost her pistol. She paces under the yellow light, hands clenched into fists.

“Fuck!” She is a live wire of adrenaline. Aside from the whole “brain slowly rotting into liquid” thing her and Johnny have going on, this is the closest she’s felt to the threat of a real death in ages. After the nightmare of Arasaka, the loss of Jackie, and the addition of her irritating, handsome parasite, V has been careful almost to a fault during most jobs. She has always preferred to do things in the dark, where she can control the enemies before her like puppets on a stage. It was Jackie that liked to go in, guns blazing. Well Jackie and — 

“This is what you get for creepin’ around like a weird little spider, you stupid idiot. If you just killed them all as you found them, they couldn’t come back to bite you in the ass.” He leans in tandem with her bike, perfectly undisturbed, smoking a cigarette. She just steps close and screams wordlessly in his face before stalking off into the undergrowth.

Night City is alive, a bright beacon of electricity and neon, beneath the ugly indigo of the evening sky. Thankfully, it’s not raining. All she has left to wear home is her bra and filthy pants. Her shirt is a god damn ruin. She takes a deep breath and drops to sit amongst the dirt and the weeds. Johnny flickers into view beside her.

“That was pretty fuckin’ intense.”

“Yup,” she hates how much she is craving a cigarette of all things. Instead, she just clenches and unclenches her jaw and picks at the rips in the knees of her jeans.

“How has no one ever taught you to shoot a gun, V?” He sounds genuinely shocked at her confession. “You’re so fuckin’ bad at bein’ a merc sometimes, it’s borderline impressive”

“No one ever offered, asshole, and by the time I knew people who could, I was just better at netrunnin’ and bein’ a ‘weird little spider.’” 

“And it’s in this state that you wanna go takin’ down a bunch of snipers at an Arasaka parade? Your Deathwish is showin, sweetheart.” He takes a drag and smirks at her.

“That’s what I have you for,  _ darling _ .”

“Someone has to look out for the meat. It’s what this whole shitshow is about, isn’t it? Your precious body.”

“Wasn’t it you that said jealousy was unbecoming?”

“I said it wasn’t a good look on you,” he corrects her, and gives her a once over. “This is, though.” 

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll be sure to take your fashion advice to heart, thanks.” A lapse in banter and the sweat on her skin cools, leaving her to tremble as the adrenaline slowly bleeds out of her. Even though she’s technically safe, her body is still struggling to shut off it’s ‘fight or flight’ reflexes, and it makes every sensation she’s experiencing multiply itself tenfold. The longer she reflects on the skirmish, the heavier the weight of her realization on how close she came to flatlining. The trembling in her limbs morphs into shaking and she pulls her legs to her chest. Johnny doesn’t say anything to console her, offers up no words of compassion. He would have been terrible at it, anyway. Instead, they just sit in companionable silence and he waits as she slowly calms herself back down, never once fading away.

* * *

“Oh fuck off, yes you have.”

“Tell me, am I lying?” She stops in the middle of the sidewalk to turn to him, and he flickers into view. They face one another for a moment and he makes a deliberate effort of narrowing his eyes at her to scrutinize. After a moment, he says nothing, and she continues on, leaving his long figure behind her. “Exactly.”

“Fuck, I don’t know who to feel worse for, me or you.” 

“Oh you, definitely. I’ve made it just fine the last 26 years without ‘ _ experiencin’ _ Samurai. You, on the other hand, look like you’re about to die of a broken heart. I told you, Silverhand. You guys just aren’t that popular these days. Too many years have passed, too much other bullshit.”

“Nah, you just have no sense of taste.”

“You have total control over how you look when you project yourself out here among us mortals and you wear the same clothes every single time, but sure, I’ve got bad taste.”

“It’s called bein’ an icon.”

“It’s called bein’ a cartoon character, you geriatric.”

“Why, itchin’ to see me in somethin’ different? A little less leather, little more skin, maybe? Honestly V, I suppose it’s only fair if you see me naked. All ya head to do was ask, never needed much incentive to take my pants off.”

“Shocking, truly.” She clenches her jaw in an effort to stop her mind from wondering down a dangerous path and prays he changes the subject.

“Go buy a record, I wanna hear it.”

“No, fuck off. I have shit to do today.”

"All you got planned is buyin’ ammo and gettin’ your eye optics looked at by Vic. C’mon, humor me.”

“Literally all I  _ do _ is humor you, Silverhand. It’s just a 24/7 exercise in patience whenever you’re around.” Later, when she stops by the local corner store for lunch, V glances at the data record chips behind the counter. Samurai’s  _ A Cool Metal Fire _ is among the ones available and, at the last minute, she has the clerk throw it in. Johnny says nothing, just glitches into view while she waits for the payment to go through, and exudes a level of smug satisfaction that she thought was impossible up until that point.

That night, as she is rewiring her cyberware for the coming parade debacle, she puts it on. It is…. really good, actually. Catchy. Definitely not her usual choice but she can see why they were so popular. She won’t tell him this, of course, he’d be intolerable about it.

It takes her nearly two full tracks to realize she is singing along despite not knowing the words. A glance to his usual haunt, the cavern of her bed, and there he lays, sprawled out on his back, the perfect illustration of ease. No words are exchanged, he merely turns his head slightly to look at her. His sunglasses have vanished away into some digital ether and black eyes meet green. A small smile creeps at the corners of his mouth, and her own follows suit. He turns back to her ceiling and they finish the rest of the album together, each singing quietly under their breath.

* * *

It’s a fucking disaster from start to finish, just like Johnny said it would be. Her usual tactics are limited as they scale high rise buildings, taking out snipers. She is wrecked from nightmares, and from dying, and from being so goddamn tired of the constant battle her life has become and misses a ledge. Johnny, never far from the surface of who they have become, lurches into action, his reflexes already sharper than hers in her own body. The betrayal stings, she thinks of how it felt to feel Alt writhe beneath her, and bile creeps up her throat. Her life has become a hellish shadow of what she thought it would be. This bullshit mood trails behind her, behind them, and fear has Johnny alight with vitriol.

Oda ambushes them, and it’s Johnny who saves her life, again, because he notices the shadow first. Her arm is bleeding at an alarming rate, and she thinks he might have sheared off part of her ear, but V makes it out of the battle alive, with Hanako’s bodyguard incapacitated. The chance to sit, to rest her weary, beaten body before the net port and work the cameras is a respite that borders on an actual gift from heaven. For a moment, even Johnny thinks they have it in the bag. Takemura is there, with Hanako and then suddenly, he is fucking kidnapping her, and V is running once again.

A garbled text with coordinates and rules is sent her way as booted feet beat on rain-soaked concrete. There was no time to go back for her bike, she is literally running, on foot, for her goddamn piece of shit life. They have to stop in some shit forsaken overpass by the river while an Arasaka chopper passes overhead and Johnny launches into a tirade of all the ways this is her fault.

“I fuckin’ told you, V! I told you that trusting that fuckin’ corpo lap dog would do us no good. Now look at where we are. Arasaka already had it out for you, and now? Now they are gonna hunt us to the ends of the fuckin’ earth, you stupid cunt. I cannot believe that — "

“God fucking damnit, can you please just stop, Johnny? Can you just give it a break for one god damn second? I am literally doing my fucking best. I didn’t ask for this anymore than you, but we are here, and I cannot fucking take another barrage of verbal assaults and reminders of how fucking stupid and terrible I am. How I am a worthless bitch. I get it, okay? Fucking message received,” Growing up on the streets, V has always possessed a thick skin. She saw through Johnny’s endless insults from day one, and aside from a one-time mention of Jackie (she put the iron to her head so fast, her reaction to his crossing this line so unbelievably venomous he never dared even toe it again), he has rarely if at all hurt her feelings. She gives as good as she gets and it’s just kind of been their thing, if she’s honest. Because they are friends, and they have a fucking thing, but right now she is breaking, and she is tired, and she is done. If it were anyone else, she would have even asked for a hug. But it’s not anyone else, and Johnny is still fucking Johnny, so he just shuts up and looks at her. A line about tears in the rain flutters across the surface of her consciousness but it’s gone before she can grab it and suddenly, she is absolutely heaving on the ground.

The sobs rattle through her like thunder and she literally cannot catch her breath. She hasn’t cried this hard since Jackie, since that fucking nightmare of a car ride after Arasaka, on their way to Dex. She fucking died and didn’t cry this hard but now she couldn’t contain it if she tried. Months of bullshit forces its way out of her through her throat and she is vomiting before she realizes it. On all fours, staring down at a rain-soaked puddle of her own vaguely bloody puke and V suddenly knows what rock bottom for her looks like.

Johnny is right. They are on the run for their fucking lives. The biggest, farthest reaching cancer of a corporation is out to kill her and there is no end of this burnt planet she can run to for safety. She is suddenly aware of her rapidly compounding isolation. Panam, River, fucking Judy, they are all held at such an arm’s length. This burden that is Her is something that she alone must carry because she is such a fucking mess, she cannot drag anyone else down. Not after Jackie. Except, now she’s not alone, anymore. She has been saddled with the worst imaginable human being to be stuck with and, worst, she thinks she has grown attached to him, beyond the rigid boundaries of their entanglement. That sharp something slipped into the space around her heart burns, a small reminder of her own propensity for bad choices. He doesn’t really deserve her sentiments, but she is so tired of being alone and the thing is, he knows all this shit because he can feel her fuckin misery whenever it flares up. Theirs is the most stable relationship, of any kind, she has ever known. He has become her closest friend. Her best friend, probably. The sobs get worse.

“V listen to me.” From the wet, rainy, dark of the night, she hears him but is too busy crying harder than she ever has in her life to look for his familiar shape. A presence bends before her.

“V, god damn it, you need to listen to me!”

She is shaking like this is the end, like this is fucking it. Maybe it is.

“V!”

Would she know when Johnny took control? They had both assumed it would be a slow process, that one day They would simply be a Him, but now she wonders if it’s going to suddenly happen all at once. What a sad, pathetic way to end her sad little life. These thoughts feel old, they remind her of the night she first met him. Ha met him. What a weird way to think of his absolute invasion of her innermost places. They didn’t meet like normal people, they were pushed together, unable to break apart, decidedly capable of breaking down, but only as one. Maybe her personality, her engram or whatever the fuck it is, has reached its breaking point and from here on out, it’s gonna be the Johnny Silverhand Show. How long would it take anyone else to figure it out? Is she still intact enough to be distinct? Is the person that her friends know the person she believes herself to be, or is it something else,  _ someone  _ else? Does she recognize herself in the mirror, anymore? Something firm starts pulling on her. A hand, colder somehow than the rain, tugs at her arm. It pulls her up from the ground, from the puke and snot and the filth.

Just as sudden as they came upon her, the body-wracking sobs are gone, replaced with a numbness permeating the deepest parts of her bones. She looks down, to the silver hand clutching at her, its form glitching in and out of corporeality. She looks back up at him and he looks like an animal with its leg caught in a trap. There is fear, real fear, on his face and that scares her more than anything. She is the weak one, the one who cries in the shower and helps people just because it makes her feel human. He’s the one whose responsibility it is to stay jaded and rigid in the face of all the bullshit they have to go through. These are the terms they’ve never discussed, the roles they’ve never defined, but the ones they have adhered to all the same.

“You’ve never been the weak one, don’t you fucking dare.”

Did she even say that out loud? She’s shaking so hard, her teeth chatter. 

He is furious again; the fear having fucked off to somewhere she can’t see. “Get it the fuck together, V. We don’t have the luxury of despair right now. You have to get us to Takemura’s fucking apartment.  _ You _ do. Or we are going to die out here, in the rain, like a bunch of fuckin’ idiots in a badly written love song. If I could carry the burden, babe, I would but I can’t so I’m gonna need you to get your shit together and get us out of here. Because  _ you _ are always the one that does that, got it? Cry when we are home, V. Cry when we are fucking home.”

They look at one another and she nods, weakly. With drenched hands, she wipes the muck from her face and takes a deep, shuddering breath. The chopper has long since passed on and they have to move. So, they do. For whatever reason, he never flickers back out of reality, and instead pounds in step beside her as they make their way through this city of nightmares and danger.

* * *

“Nope, get up. Not this shit again, V. Get UP!” An explosion, Adam fucking Smasher dropping like a bomb through the ceiling, pulverizing Goro, crashing her through three floors of debris. Everything is pain, there is no discerning what is causing the anguish. Death feels like a fucking gift and Johnny Asshole Silverhand is ripping it from her hands. “GET UP, V!”

Why is he constantly yelling at her to get up? Would it be so hard, just once, to ask nicely? The blood loss is making her delirious, it seems. He is bent above her and as she focuses beyond his face, the absolute flood of Arasaka goons leaves her breathless again. With a groan, she lets him pull her to her feet. He is saying something about navigation, about getting to safety, but all she can concentrate on is the afterimage of Takemura’s fear when the monster that was once a man named Adam Smasher breaks him down into raw components of meat and blood and viscera.

A black out.

She’s down the hall, falling onto her knees. The echo of a gunshot above her head and she is moving again. Another black out, she is crouched beside an upturned couch, Arasaka goons surrounding her. She pulls the shotgun from her side and blasts the hole in the floor into a bigger one and drops through. Another black out, her hands wrapping around the broken frame of a door, a knife inches from her throat lunging out of the dark. Everything is dark and red and heavy smoke is invading her lungs. She blinks and is pushing her bloody, beaten body out into the harsh cold of the courtyard. The rain is as unrelenting as ever. Johnny is yelling something, but the surge of agony shoots up her neck, into the void left by a bullet that once lived inside her brain. The relic is malfunctioning worse than ever, everything is fading. She thinks, then, that she is going to die. Johnny says something else, but she cannot hold on. The darkness swallows her whole.

Hours and miles later, she is in the bathroom of some shady motel, scrubbing blood from her arms. She doesn’t remember getting there. Johnny flickers into existence beside her, she looks at him and feels the pain scream from somewhere inside her head. Another moment of lost time and she is sitting in a chair, with her shotgun, facing the locked door. Johnny is panic ranting about the concept of seedy motels, and she has no energy left to fight him. She has no energy left at all. There is a knock on the door and the vehemence behind his warning to “not fuckin’ move” shocks her. There it is again,  _ fear _ , written into what was probably once a very nice set of features. It troubles her down to her fucking core. Ultimately, she is forced to open the door, recognizing one of the dolls from Clouds. She has a message: Hanako wants to meet. 

Once the doll leaves, they argue about what to do. She is so barely clinging to functionality; V is pretty sure he even wins. After a moment to gather her thoughts, she stands, leaves the filthy fuckin motel room and it all goes tits up after that. The attack that comes makes every other thing she has ever felt pale in comparison.

V collapses on the ground and stares up at him and realizes that they won’t be making it to the rendezvous. It doesn’t even matter that they can’t agree on what to do. This really is it. The relic has simply won and all that’s left is for her to concede with dignity. If she’s honest, at least her body will live on. Maybe Johnny won’t absolutely destroy it. Hah, that’s not likely. She hopes he is happy, hopes that he knows how to be happy, now. They both don’t deserve to die. It’s a shitty, painful end, but he is there for her. She’s not alone. She could see Jackie again, maybe, if there is an afterlife beyond the club where Rogue holds court. He’s absolutely going to fuck Rogue with her body and that feels shitty, so she tries not to think about. 

She has tethered herself to him far more than she ever needed too, far more than she ever should have. It’s that damn loneliness. It’s always there. There has never been a moment where she felt she belonged that lasted long enough to matter. Nothing was ever for V and V alone. Nothing but her loneliness, her inability to fit. In these last few months, though, even if he was fucking terrible, he was _ hers _ and that counted, gave her something to cling to in her hours of need. It helps her come to terms with this moment, lying in the parking lot of some terrible motel, slippin’ away into the black. He doesn’t love her, he barely even likes her, but he is hers in a way that nothing ever has been before or will be again and that total possession of something chased away the loneliness long enough to impact. 

It’s not healthy; their codependency that borders on possessiveness but it’s the method they have decided on to make this work. She didn’t have to find a way to fit in with him, their slow collision course was doing it for her. There is something to be said about being rebuilt in the image of another, a certain intimacy there that is lost in entanglements with lesser partners. Or not. And this is all one big lie she tells herself to justify the fucked-up feelings she has projected onto the parasite that berates and degrades her in one breath, only to make her laugh in the next. Maybe that’s an unfair assessment of who he’s become, though. Either way, it’s too late now.

With a trembling hand she reaches up and touches his face, if only because she has always wondered what it would feel like. He is firm and warm and that’s how she knows she’s gone. The ghost of his name on her lips as her fingers curl away in agony. She thinks he is promising her something, but she can’t tell anymore. Another spike of pain and it all fades to black. May the credits roll quickly on her short existence, half-lived and drenched in loneliness that it was. 

* * *

She’s not dead.

Something that is not quite disappointment nags at her when the realization hits. She says something, his name possibly, but he just tells her to get up, to smell the ocean. The firmness of the pills in her hand answer any lingering questions of how. All that remains is why. In what feels like an act of pure effort, she drags her broken form to lean against the balcony and stare out across the sea. The same sea that, just days earlier, looked upon them and their stolen minutes on a broken roller coaster. What a world away that moment was. Blood is the only thing she tastes.

He’s leading her again, and she wonders if this is purgatory. Johnny would fucking be there, too. He’s always fucking there. She cannot fucking believe he didn’t just take it, take the body, and end this pathetic fuckin’ charade. It’s a dance number she’s sick of performing. He plays it off, says he could have had it whenever he wants, and neither of them discuss the feelings bleeding across this link between them. She has never been so fucking raw in her life. Every nerve is exposed. Death was preferable to this. She climbs through a window, tries not to puke.

"Yes.” V doesn’t even hesitate. Of course, she would take a bullet for him. They’re friends, companions in their own fucked up way. It’s beyond the binary reality of if the meat dies, they die. Somewhere along the way, it had evolved, just as they still are. Besides, what does she have left to lose? Panam is a bright sun of warmth and life and, once V helped her back into her rightful place with the clan, there was no space left within which for her to function. V is a do-er, she cannot sit still. This wasn’t always the case, but Silverhand’s traits and hers are almost indistinguishable nowadays. She caught him lusting after sushi merely hours after telling her how revolting it is that she ate it. Judy is a woman deserving of far more than dying girls who don’t know how to tell someone they love them without running away. River just wants a partner to wade through life’s shit with. The only partner V ever had died in the back of an AI-driven taxi, clothed in a stolen corpo suit, with an  _ amiga _ left unspoken upon his bloodied mouth as he slipped into the great unknown, leaving a void inside her bigger than the one he had originally filled. 

There are so many roles people play in one another’s lives and V has never fit into any of them. Except now, a space has been carved for her, one she is perfectly suited to slip into, thanks to some fucked up Arasaka tech and a disastrous job that has gone so far off fucking course, she’s in another universe from the one she started in all those weeks ago. And so, she agrees to help Johnny. They will take down Adam Smasher, no matter what, because he’s given her the only thing he has left to offer: his loyalty, and she cannot take such a sacrifice lightly. They’re friends, but it’s more bruising than that. She’ll even let him take her meat suit out for a spin. 

His dog tags are heavier around her neck than any self-inflicted noose. This is a promise, a tangible declaration of allegiance that was not expected and she cannot keep her focus off of their weight beneath her bloodied shirt. After weeks and months of fighting and death threats and gun to temple moments of explosive emotion, he has made her a promise and all she can think is how wildly surprising the whole thing is. A question of misjudgment, lying in what she assumed was the throes of death. Maybe he’s not so monstrous after all, maybe her sentiments towards him are less a projection of desperation and loneliness and more of an intimate knowing of the person her body is destroying itself to make room for.

“Still feel a sharp somethin’ near your heart” There is no universe where he doesn’t recognize it, and his acknowledgement of its existence surprises her. A short, bitter laugh echoes in the trashed hotel room.

“Doubt that’s ever goin’ away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ gosh-emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter
> 
> come tell me your super specific Johnny Silverhand headcanons and we can yell about it together <3


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> Last chapter was one big exercise in angst so I tried to break this up in such a way that this one is a bit more fun, even a lil ~spicy~.  
> For the sake of it all, and in huge part because of how the prologue/end of act one plays out, we are gonna work under the assumption that V can feel Silverhand's attempts at touching her, physically.  
> Every use of the pet name kitten, and the stupid blurb about how V sleeps, are dedicated totally to the Rainbow Cadenza discord and our one shared brain cell <3  
> As always every comment is a gift and a joy and I will continue to be the nerd that responds to every single one!  
> Thank you, and enjoy!
> 
> EDIT 12/27: now beta'd by the delightful @CuteAsAMuntin

The more time that separates her from the misery of the parade, of Takemura, of the Pistis Sophia hotel in Pacifica, the better she feels. It’s probably just her brain mass producing endorphins and serotonin to counterbalance the terror her impending doom leaves within her, but it works all the same. Another round of pills gifted from Misty and Vic, some upgrades to her cyberware, an ancient set of dog tags nestled underneath her shirt. It all helps. It all contributes to her somewhat “return” to form. She visits Judy, because she needs to. Johnny actually offers his approval, as if she required it. They don’t talk about most of what happened in those two hotel rooms, there is no need. There is never a need. They know each other far too well now, anyway.

Virtually every major exertion ends in an attack, but they put off Hanako and her meeting. If Johnny is going to give up his only chance at a future beyond his death, then the least she can do is help him out. She was always loyal to the wrong people, at the wrong time, but this feels like an excuse. Loyalty and devotion are two sides of the same street and the dividing line has blurred into near nonexistence. What she would give for five minutes of true solitude, if only to talk herself out of this self-imposed hell.

Being around other people, real, physical people, helps. They ground her, remind her that life is not so bad when she isn’t puking blood. Even Johnny laughs, makes her laugh, is capable of human emotion beyond hate and disgust. She thinks it might be pity, god knows she is pitiful enough, but she takes it. It’s easier to stop reading whatever emotions he sends her, unwilling or otherwise. They only make it harder to resurface. As the end rapidly approaches, its hard to decide whether that’s a bad thing.

* * *

River invites her over for dinner. She accepts because she doesn’t really have a reason not to. Johnny whines the entire car ride but fucks off when she gets there, opting to instead hum irritatingly into their head.

As she follows River up the water tower, the reality of what will probably happen hits her. She’s not particularly interested in pursuing him beyond what they have as friends but, honestly, she  _ still _ hasn’t gotten laid outside of some decidedly inappropriate dreams and seeing as they both know Silverhand will come for Rogue like a thief in the night the moment she lets him take control, V decides she has earned this one. Johnny’s voice rasps beyond the edges of her vision.

"Don’t you dare make me fuck a cop. Don’t  _ you _ dare fuck a cop.”

“We’ve already been over this, Johnny,” she sighs, tired of the pushback. Hasn’t she earned this? This one moment of respite? To feel adored, to make a physical connection with someone, something beyond the co-dependent nightmare the two of them are becoming.

“No, we haven’t. Cause you’re a scared little girl who ran away, too fuckin’ pathetic to actually do anything about it.” Oh so  _ now _ is when they’re gonna bring it up. She stops walking and turns to where he would be standing, if he were real. He’s not there.

“Hey, River, I have to make a call really quick.” The former detective looks back at her, halfway up the ladder. “It’s nothin’ major but I’d rather get it outta the way first. Go on ahead, get a beer ready for me.” She gives him the best possible smile she can muster before walking away. Once River is far enough out of earshot, she stares at the nearest railing. “Johnny.” It is not a question; it is not a request. He doesn’t appear. “Now who’s fuckin’ scared,”

“Still you, kitten.” He leans,  _ he is always fucking leaning _ , on the wall of a dilapidated control room behind her and she turns to face him.

“Do you  _ really _ want to do this?” She doesn’t even really know what it is she is asking him about, it’s all too unnamable and nebulous to define.

“Do you?” he counters. Can’t he just use words in a way that leads to conversation, not confrontation? It’s impossible to hide from the ghost in her shell. She narrows her eyes at him.

“I’m a fucking person, Johnny. A real girl, just like the commercials promised, complete with needs. As fun as it is drenching myself with desire over strangers that catch your fancy, I am tired of denying myself just for the sake of modesty. Don’t want to get fucked by a cop? Leave. Go take a trip to the cyberhell den where you hide at night. I’m doing this, and I’m doing it for me. We both know you’ll do the same when the time comes.”

“Never could stand a jealous bitch,” is all he says, and she laughs, probably out loud.

“Me? Me, jealous? For fuck’s sake Johnny, you sure it’s  _ you _ that doesn’t want to get fucked by a cop or is it that you don’t want to feel  _ me _ getting fucked by a cop?” She marches up to him and he turns away in mock disinterest, features hidden beneath the aviators. “It’s never an issue when it comes to Judy, because Judy has the wrong parts. Admit it. You’re dyin’ to be the only dick in my life, and I’m literally dying because you are.''

He refuses to look at her.

She curls her hand into a fist. “Don’t want to feel River slide himself into me because you wish it was you, was your ‘impressive’ cock, and its fucking not, is it?” She is so close to him; she could pin him to the wall in a half step. His head turns slightly, she knows he’s looking at her. 

“In your dreams, princess,” and he’s gone. 

At first, the confession is lost on her. And then it’s not and she is ill with mortification. A small part of her always suspected, but the confirmation feels like a stone that sinks deep into the well of her heart. Her parasite has nothing more to say and, after a moment, V makes her way back to the water tower and River.

* * *

It’s sloppy, and wet, the way River kisses her. He is gentle, respectful, even drunk. She wants him to pin her to a wall, crush her body beneath his, and instead he practically worships at her feet. Women spend their whole lives never knowing a man’s touch as sweet as this and she fucking hates it. She hates what Johnny has done to her and it is spite, total in its consumption of her, that brings her to complete the task. River tries to bury his wet mouth between her legs, but she doesn’t let him. Instead, she is on her knees, taking him into her mouth. There is no satisfaction, near reverential, like there was in her dream, but she works at it all the same. Silverhand is dismantling her cell by cell, a molecule at a time, and rebuilding her in his image. She refuses to let him have this. He has so much of her already, he possesses her in almost totality 90% of the time. What V wants and what V can get are never aligned, but she will take this.

River whines her name softly, a whisper in the dark of night. He is close and she doesn’t want him to finish this way. She pushes his hulking form back onto the bed and straddles him. His dark eyes, real and cybernetic, bore into hers as she slides herself down upon him. It has been months. Lifetimes. To be full in such a way is a satisfaction found in no other place. River hisses at her enveloping heat and bucks up into her. Her back arches, an ache flows through her, and her hand tugs at her breast.

Except.  _ Oh _ .

It’s not her hand.

She cannot see him, he is behind her, but his silvered fingers roll the bead of her nipple between them and it is, unquestionably, the sexiest thing she has ever seen. That pit opens up inside her and she forces herself not to moan the wrong name into existence. River’s eyes are closed, thank fuck, and he cannot see the single point that her vision has been reduced to. Her every sense is focused on the cold metal hand gripping her breast, pulling roughly at the tender skin. There was a line that had been toed for months now, and she quivers as it is crossed.

The man beneath her tries to keep a steady pace but she is brutal in her pursuit of release. She doesn’t want to be gently fucked like something beloved. She _ isn’t _ beloved, she is a woman possessed and she wants the man behind her to rut into her like an animal. The fingers at her breast move, slide up her collarbone and before she can stop herself, she takes one into her mouth. The hard, quick “ _ fuck _ ,” whispered into her ear is torture. She runs her tongue up and down the metal digit, wanting more than anything for it to be something far more ‘impressive’ that her lips are wrapped around.

The end is close, and she has abandoned all awareness of River save for the slamming of his cock in and out of her. There is only one name perched at the edge of her tongue and it is not his. She leans back, meeting the solid form of a body not really there. Another hand, again not her own, runs the length of her side before digging brutally into her hip. She slips her fingers over his, and they lace together without hesitance. With his assistance, the speed with which she fucks the man beneath her is intensified. His calloused fingers bruise into her hip, urging her to ride faster, quicker, harder. His silvered hand wraps itself tightly around her throat and, just before the detonation, he whispers, “Cum for me, kitten,” and she’s never been so accommodating in her life.

She has to press the fist of her other hand into her mouth to keep from screaming out his name as she explodes. River’s grip on her outer thighs tightens and she knows the man beneath her is following her down the rabbit hole, but Alice’s head is already lost. As soon as it’s over, Johnny vanishes, and she collapses onto the man beneath her. There are no words shared, River simply pulls her to him, wraps her in his embrace, and together they chase sleep. She lets Silverhand fuck her three times over in her dreams. She’s not sure, honestly, if it even really happens. It’s far less detailed than the other times. They, too, share no words, but it is only because there is nothing left to give to one another that has not already been taken.

* * *

River tells her to call him later, that they should go out and do something, anything, together. V tries not to sound too cagey when she offers her noncommittal response. She can’t even look him in the eye now without being transported back to the previous night — flashes of a silver hand tracing it’s way up her body, into her mouth, around her neck. His disappointment is written across his face, but the soft, burly hulk of a man is too gracious to say anything. It’s not his fault that she is wildly out of control and incapable of establishing boundaries with her brain parasite. It felt like cheating, if she lets herself think about the emotional implications of that night, but not on River. Which is,  _ fuck _ , is so, so much worse.

Johnny is like a cat, feigning disinterest in her awkward parting with River, but when she gets on her bike to return to Night City and her ‘regular’ life, as she fidgets with her controls to get everything just right, he flickers back into view. They exchange no words but there is a wave of possessiveness, coupled with satisfaction, that rolls through her. Her heart aches then, and her breath hitches, but she pushes herself through it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, that precipice calls.

* * *

She cannot believe she trusted him. Logically, fuck even morally, it was a bad call. Still. Fucking still. They had reached an equilibrium, she thought, struck a careful balance after promises shared in a rundown motel room facing the sea. They were still awful to one another, but her suddenly tender heart felt no bruising effort on his behalf. More often than not, it was actual conversations she found them sharing, not verbal blows. There had been no repeats of their dreamscape dalliances, and the carnal actions are never directly mentioned in the light of day. He reserves his filthy commentary for everyone other than her, he’s never around when she showers. It shouldn’t hurt, but like everything involving Johnny, it does. The ‘sharp something’ pressed into her heart never goes away. A week of their life lapses between her awkward escape from River’s bed, and Johnny’s taking of the keys to their meat suit. She keeps waiting for him to do something, say fucking anything, but he doesn’t and so she relinquished her small modicum of control and lets him take the reins. 

She wakes up, 31 hours later, body beat to hell, in some filthy motel. Rogue, in full dress thank god, watches her from across the room. Flashes of the abuse she’s been through flicker at the edges of her mind and the scent of some whore’s pussy lingers on her hand. For a moment, she wonders if it’s Rogue that feels slathered across her skin but no, she, they,  _ he _ was too drunk to do anything of substance with her brand new, old friend. There is an ache pulsing from her arm that she knows is a tattoo but if she doesn’t look then it’s not real. Rogue leaves, and she pukes blood and bile as her parasite flickers into form. He sneers at her and makes up some excuse about authenticity. Of course he’s a dick about it, and for some reason this entire thing feels like a punishment. For whom, though, she cannot tell.

Later, after she’s gone home and washed the filth from her body, the angry, raised letters of the ink remain. It is hilariously fucked up, what he has permanently marked her with. As if she needed anymore reminders, as if she would ever be who she was before him. The arrow is quite a sharp something pressed into the heart, indeed. Another attack hits and she faints, naked and wet, on the bathroom floor. When she wakes up, sometime later, in her bed, she knows he got them there. More and more, inch by inch, all she is, is dissolving into all that is him.

* * *

“I hate this fuckin game.”

"You are literally the biggest sourpuss I’ve ever met in my goddamn life. How you were the most important person in Night City at one point is baffling to me.” She takes a swig from the tequila and sets it back on the shitty plastic table. Her upstairs neighbors are fighting, or fucking she really can’t tell, for the third time that week.

“Oh what so I don’t wanna sit here and play fuckin’ 20 questions with my super-duper bestest friend and that makes me boring? God, V, you need to expand your horizons.” He takes a drag from his cigarette.

“Can’t, I’m too busy trying to save my life or whatever. Besides, all you used to do was get fucked up, sing to crowds of angry little pimply-faced bastards, and fuck strangers. How many venereal diseases do you think you caught? 5? I bet it’s at least 5.”

“My body was a temple, bitch.” she snorts so loud, tequila practically comes out of her nose.

“What?! Silverhand, I gave you control and within five fuckin minutes you were literally doing coke off of a hooker at the Afterlife.”

“ _ My _ body, V.  _ Yours _ is like a fun little hotel room I get to trash once in a while.”

“And I’m saddled with the bill, in the end.” She threw up for what felt like two straight days after his 31-hour romp through hell in her meat. “You’re a terrible best friend, Johnny.”

“Then don’t let me be your best friend, you dumb bitch.”

“As if I have a choice.”

“As if you really want one, anyway.” 

* * *

“The fuck do you mean, I ‘sleep like a serial killer’?”

“You sleep sideways like some kind of cyberpsychotic bitch, how do you  _ not _ see this?” He glitches out of her head and makes a huge performance of collapsing onto the bed. To say he looks ridiculous is an understatement. She chews her lip to keep from laughing.

“Oh fuck off, I’m always so tired by the time I can squeeze in a few hours of sleep, you’re lucky we —  _ I _ sleep in a bed at all, Silverhand.” Careful, Icarus.

“Wouldn’t call that constant kink in your neck the product of luck, kid,” Up until that moment she never considered what was causing the discomfort, which feels moronic in retrospect. Subconsciously, she reaches up to rub at the tense knot just below the surface of her skin.

“Stop bein’ such a drama queen. ‘Sides,  _ you’re _ the constant kink in my neck if anythin’ is.” Her insult lacks any real venom.

“You’re stallin’ V. We both know I’m right.” Later that night, after running gigs across the city, she is exhausted, and their previous conversation has long been forgotten. She crawls into bed, just like she has always done, and is asleep in moments. The next morning, as the sun cooks her into waking (Before him, she never had the window open. Now, though, well...) V finds herself feeling particularly well rested, any pressure once buried in her neck having diminished significantly. It’s not until later she realizes it’s because her body had been curled up into itself, all limbs securely tucked into the cavern of her bed.

As they,  _ she _ eats her breakfast and scrolls through her messages, looking for a basic job to start the day with, it dawns on her it was probably his doing.

“Thanks, ya know, for the whole bed thing.” She gestures vaguely in that direction. She doesn’t normally thank him for shit, but her mood is too bright to ignore. Amazing, what a good night’s rest will do.

“Sick of you bitchin’ about that neck pain, is all. Remember, if you feel it, so do I and I’m not masochistic enough to carry on like that.” 

She smiles into her cup of coffee. They both know she’s never mentioned the tight knot of tension out loud. Every day, they inch closer towards that precipice. Every day, the line blurs a little more.

V spends the afternoon catching as much sunlight as she can, if only to revel in the warmth it spreads through them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ gosh-emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter
> 
> <3


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!
> 
> Sorry for the slight delay, my darling beta @CuteAsAMuntin has been going through this fic (which has rapidly evolved into a 50+ page monstrosity) and fixing all my bad grammar and spelling, of which there is oh so much. As she combs through it, I will be going back and reuploading with her fixes in place. I also have some good news: the fic is officially finished being written!! It was technically complete when I started posting it but I've rewritten the whole ending which added like 20 fucking pages because, as you can tell by this author's note, I never know when to shut up. In total, I'm thinking we will sit somewhere around 7 or 8 chapters, depending.
> 
> This one is a lil short but it also has my second favorite interaction between our two favorite idiots. 
> 
> This chapter (and most of the fic tbqh) is dedicated to the invaluable #SingleSilverBrainCell Discord. You are all an endless source of inspiration and friendship!  
> Enjoy <33

“The man who saved my life,” is the only right answer to his question. His stupid, parasitic chip is the reason Takemura was able to dig a still breathing corpse out of the land fill. It doesn’t matter what they’ve gone through between that bullet and this cold moment beneath the dark clouds, on the outskirts of Night City. The weight of his dog tags reminds her of his promise. He’ll fulfill it, she has never doubted it. He’s an asshole, a self-centered fucking dick, concerned only with himself, but he’s not cruel, not when it comes down to it. Silverhand is a lot of things, but none of them equate to that kind of monster. He doesn’t take what isn’t his by basic right. If offered, he will consume, but there is an expectation of consent at all times from him and V never gave it.

“V…. you don’t know how much I want that to be true,” is the sincerest fucking thing he has ever said to her. The ache radiating from him, from her, from them, is pathetic and heartbreaking. For the next few minutes, the clouds part, and he speaks to her as one human to another. He is more honest with her in these few moments then it feels like either of them have ever been with one another, or anyone else. 

“...and this stupid wave of relief washes over me.” She’s tracking his pacing with her eyes but at this, she has to look away. It’s too raw. It’s too close to that box of shit they are mutually agreeing not to discuss. It’s mostly her box, she thinks, but his confession leaves her breathless and she is lost on what to say. He stares off into the night sky and there is this feeling of a precipice once more rapidly approaching. 

“I don’t know if I can do this without you.” it sounds so weak, but it’s the truth. V looks at her feet because she can’t look at him. “I’ve never had much in the way of things worth losin’, ya know? Textbook street kid life, no parents or family to speak of. Night City had already chewed me up before I knew how to fuckin’ read. I just sort of drifted, doing whatever I could to survive.” She has to pause and ball her fingers into fists. This hurts more than she thought it would. “And then, uhm,” a terrible, fake cough to cover a sob. “Uh, Jackie. And well, he uh,” she draws a ragged breath. “Ya know.”

A sniffle in the silence that follows. “And then I was alone again. And then suddenly, you. You had this whole almost cult of personality thing goin’ on, back when you were still alive. People adored you, even if you never deserved it. It’s like, uh, it’s like you’ve never had to find a place that you fit into because they just built themselves around you. And at night, sometimes, I dream that I’m you, in the more literal sense and it uhm, yeah. It must have felt fucking amazing, having somewhere to fit, and I’m sure you hated every second of it. You are nothing if not an expert at keeping your distance from everything good in this world, just to avoid anything as base as human entanglement beyond the carnal variety,” she pauses, “Well, all that and an asshole. God, you are such an asshole,” V laughs, and he laughs with her.

“Fuck, we are a miserable pair.”

“That we are.” It’s silent again, and he sits beside her. Cigarette smoke drifts into the air around them. The precipice looms. There are a million things she wants to say; he is fidgeting so much, her own knees bounce.

“V, I can’t be — ”

“You should apologize to Rogue.” He gives her a look of genuine surprise. “Well, I mean  _ obviously _ I will have to be involved, but all the same. I can call her; you can take her somewhere nice. You owe it to her.”

“That would mean givin’ me control again, you know that.”

“Yeah,” she lets out a sigh. “Yeah, I do. I think you’re done punishin’ us, yourself really, now. I’m sure it won’t go down like that again.” She turns to him. “Will it, Johnny?” More surprise on his face. He so often forgets that she knows him just as well as he knows her. There is only so much space inside the meat they wear. He smiles. “Good, let’s delta. It’s fuckin’ sad as shit out here.”

They,  _ she _ , makes her way back to the bike. He’s already flickered from view, but she stops and stares at the concrete and metal tomb he’s buried under. “When she fucks you, Silverhand, please piss afterwards. I don’t want another goddamn UTI.”

* * *

“Where do you go, ya know, when you aren’t irritatin’ the life outta me?” 

“I’m always irritatin’ the life out of you, bitch. That’s our  _ thing _ .”

“Our  _ thing _ is me trying to be a good person, bring a little kindness to this black hole of a city, and you calling me a weak-hearted cunt who wants to fix people because she can’t fix herself.”

“And I’m right.”

“Never said you weren’t, but that still doesn’t answer my question.”

“Why are we always playin’ truth or truth, V? It gets old.”

“Because there is literally nothing better to do.” The subway lurches and she almost regrets opting to take it. He hates the subway, though, so obviously she had no choice in the matter. “Besides, you get to spend so much of your time in my head, it would be nice to return the favor.”

“Why?”

“Stallin’ for time, Silverhand. That’s all you ever do.” Their stop approaches, and she stands, stomach heaving in time with the motion of the car.

“Remember that space, where we met that first time?”

“That cyber-lobby thing? Like after our fun romp through your memories of Alt?” Low blow, but she is still a little pissed about his 31-hour bender. Only a little, though. 

“Yes, bitch, there.” The crowd rushes past her to leave and she is the last to exit onto the platform. It is a ridiculously beautiful day out, and the view from so high above the city nearly takes her breath away. 

“So what, you just sit on one of those digitized ottomans and vibe? Play solitaire, reflect on every choice in your life that brought you to this point, where you are stuck in some sad merc’s head, having to listen to her be nice to whores because she thinks they are people, too?”

"Oh shut the fuck up, just because I find  _ your _ incessant need to help them a stupid as fuck decision doesn’t mean I don’t respect em. Honestly, Night City would collapse without the joytoy and doll industries.”

“Johnny Silverhand, the people’s champion.” A ragtag group of street kids push past her as she heads down the stairs. She feels one of them slip a hand into her pocket, reaching for a wallet or data card that isn’t there. She was one of them, a lifetime, and a malfunctioning relic ago. As if she would ever be so stupid. Some lessons you only need to learn once.

“Honestly, time doesn’t work the same. Seconds in there feel like years out here. And then other times, I feel like I’ve spent a lifetime climbin’ those ugly fuckin’ digital walls just to pop back in and see you are still tryin’ to hack into the same subnetwork.”

“Perfection takes time.”

“So does failure, if you delude yourself long enough.”

“That sounds sad as fuck, Johnny. Why go there at all?” A few months earlier, she wouldn’t have asked such a question, if only to avoid giving him any ideas. Now, though. 

“Because I can’t handle being you 24/7. Makes me crazy, constantly itching to just fuckin’  _ move _ your dumbass a little faster, shoot my pistol with any actual skill, hit on some hot piece that saunters by, blow through that pack of cigarettes you insist on going through at an excruciatin’ pace.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it? Feelin’ powerless.” She thinks back to his bender. 

“Won’t work, babe. I don’t do regrets.” 

“He says, after holding midnight confessional at his gravesite, baring his black little soul to me.” She worries she has insulted him, and fuck if she can handle another regression. “Don’t worry, it was nice, pretendin’ we were people who could get along.”

“It wasn’t.”

“I can tell when you’re lyin’, Johnny. You know that.” 

He says nothing. They walk on, sun burning down onto her shoulders. He is a cat, bathing in the yellow warmth of its light. “It’s not a lie if it wasn’t pretend, V.”

“Gettin’ soft, Silverhand. Keep it up and I might think you even care about me.”

His laugh is soft in the space behind her ear. She can’t keep the smile off her face.

* * *

His genuine excitement as she escorts Rogue to the drive-in is infectious, even to those not sharing a brain with him. The older woman laughs, a real honest to fuck belly laugh, at some stupid joke V tells and it reminds her that there is this whole other side to the people Johnny has forced into her life, a side she’ll never get to see because he’s done such a good job makin’ them all hate him. Still, it’s nice to let go of her body for once, and not worry. The scene at his grave was indeed another turning point and where they stand now is on equal footing. Unlike before, any last questions of who he really is underneath the façade of metal and hate, are chased away. It’s freeing to let go, not to the excruciating pulse of an attack, but to her friend, whom, despite it all, she  _ does _ trust. V doesn’t have the capabilities to interrupt in his usual fashion, not that she would want to anyway. Instead, she treats it like a well needed nap. 

It’s not her favorite idea in the world, him using her body to fuck someone, but, well, someone should use the meat to get laid at least once before it’s all over. Technically, she did fuck River but that entire shitshow was one big step beyond the boundaries she and Johnny are tryin’ real hard to stay inside. Maybe the physical satisfaction will rub off on her, as well. She cannot possibly fuck anyone else as long as they are tethered like this. It’s hard enough dealing with him in the general sense. Every day it feels like a struggle not to fuckin’  _ wet _ herself every time her hands reload his pistol with a flourish that is unreasonably sexy (“You totally practiced that in the mirror, Silverhand, don’t fuckin’ lie”). She can never get them to do it with any other gun. Definitely not a good sign but at this point, they are both too far gone down the rabbit hole of their undoing for it to matter much. 

No, she won’t get involved in whatever happens that evening. Makes it less painful, but she can lie to herself and say it’s because she’s a good person, a good friend. The moments that Johnny and Rogue share at the drive-in will be for them, and for no one else. She won’t peer or pry, even if she wanted too. Instead, she will rest, and think of nothing at all.

* * *

“Is it because of V?”

“No, it’s because of you, and the look on her face when you’re not there, and a million other reasons why.”

“I don’t understand what the fuck the problem is, Rogue.”

“Yeah you do, Johnny. You just don’t like the answer.”

* * *

Except it doesn’t go well, the date. She could probably rifle back through their memory banks to find out why, but it feels invasive, which is amusingly ironic. He just snaps something about a “miscommunication,” and she leaves it at that. Besides, they have other shit to do apparently. They gotta go meet Kerry, his former band mate, and continue on with the Johnny Silverhand Farewell Tour. It’s nice to have a purpose that isn’t solely focused on trying to save their lives. Panam, Judy, River, they all are in better places now, all their currently pressing matters wrapped up with tight little bows. Sure, there are always gigs, and she will take them as needed for eddys, but honestly,  _ she’s dying _ . She is physically withering away. Blood and cigarettes are all she tastes anymore. She started smoking. It doesn’t matter. Either he gets the body, or she will and when it comes down to it, she’ll just buy some new fuckin lungs.

Johnny’s dying, too, just in a different way. The person he was, who he spent 32 years beating himself into, is fading. Be it growth, or her own parasitic influences, he’s just losing his edge. She can feel it, the anger slowly dimming. He straight up complimented her the other day on her netrunnin’ skills (“Damn, doll, you really are lethal with a quickhack”) and she couldn’t keep the stupid grin off her face. Hanako’s siren song scores every second of their days and it’s nice to take those moments when she can.

She likes Kerry. He honestly reminds her a lot of Johnny, just without all the unfocused rage. It’s easy, talking to him, because he is the first person from Silverhand’s life who tries to get to know her, and not just who she is in relation to her parasite. She stood between Rogue and Johnny and whatever fucked up reunion the two of them had planned for one another, and as such, she is nothing but a vessel for whatever it is the two of them want. Or wanted, rather. Kerry, on the other hand, just straight up gets it. Gets what Silverhand is like, the toll he can take on a person. She doesn’t say it out loud, but he helps to pad that sliver in her heart, keep it from slippin’ in just a little more. He grounds her, shows her what this all looks like from the outside. How stupid it is, really, for the both of them to have let things slip so far beyond the realm of okay. It’s this, and his deliciously good looks, that makes her sympathizes with Johnny’s lamentations for a cock.

“I’m glad he won’t fuck you. Would be too fuckin’ weird.” Her parasite takes a draw on his ever-present cigarette. “Bet he’d just be thinkin’ about me the whole time, anyway.”

“You should have just screwed him, back then. I can tell you wanted too, ya know.” She says, blowing the smoke out into the fading sunlight. 

Johnny is silent for a while afterwards .“Yeah, but I didn’t. Too much there, I think. Besides, wrong parts,”

“Oh, fuck off, ‘too much there.’ Never stopped you with Rogue, or Alt, or whoever the fuck else. You just didn’t because  _ you _ fuck  _ people _ , not the other way around. And ‘sides, you’re both too similar. You just didn’t wanna fall in love.”

“Never knew how, saddest shit ever. Like you said, wouldn’t lower myself to something as base as human entanglement.” They watch the sun slip beneath the Night City skyline and take a drag in unison. “Now, though. Well now it’s too fuckin’ late for feelings. I’ve gotta save your stupid god damned life and then, I don’t know, drift off into the void or some shit.” V glances at him from the corner of her eye; he’s turned from the view, instead looking up at the stars.

“You could tell him, you’ve got virtually nothin left to lose anyway, said it yourself. I’ve gotta hand over control for the reunion show anyhow. I’m missin’ the parts, but we both know this goes beyond the flesh. He might even — ”

“Ain’t Kerry that I love, babe.”

“Right, well then at least talk to Rogue — ”

“Ain’t Rogue neither.” The silence is deafening. Everything else has faded away. She reaches, refusing the sting of hope.

“I know Alt is — ”

"Don’t make me say it, V. Life is sad enough as is. Don’t need another fuckin’ reminder of all the things we have to sacrifice.” Johnny flickers out of view and she is stuck staring at the space he once occupied. Is this what it will feel like, when he leaves that last time? Her just carrying around a constant reminder of the absence of him. There was a hole in her brain, once, and his data chip filled it. What will she put there, when he’s gone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ gosh-emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter
> 
> until next time <3


	6. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!
> 
> Thank you everyone for your endless stream of kind words and comments. I never expected this fic to pop off the way it has and I am just shook at the reception and feedback. You are all lovely. Beta is the effervescent @CuteAsAMuntin. As always an unbelievable amount of thanks to the babes in the discord. Y'all are everything <3
> 
> This chapter is setting us up for the End. Still not totally sure on final chapter count. Maybe Eight? Either way, this one has some smut.  
> Enjoy <3

“Never did answer my question, Johnny.”

“This shit again?” She-- _they_ are driving through the streets, the rain is heavy and leaves her skin slick with oil. Moments like this she thinks she should use something other than Jackie’s bike but that feels too much like a betrayal.

“C’mon, I’d tell you mine, but you probably already know, what with how much time you spend diggin’ through my brain.”

“I don’t fuckin’ dig through your brain, you bitch. I’m not that desperate for entertainment.”

“Mhm, how’d you know about the cat thing, then?”

“You told me?”

“I did not fuckin’ tell you, Silverhand.” He’s quiet, knowing she’s right. She doesn’t really mind, if she’s honest. She can tell when he does it. She’ll be doing something, anything, like hacking some scav’s security system or taking a piss, and suddenly she is remembering weird, random shit. He’s never breached beyond what she would call ‘appropriate’ topics, though. Stuff she wouldn’t offer up to, say, Panam, if asked.

“Just look it up on the net, I’m sure I’ve got tons of unofficial biographies floatin’ around on it.”

“Please, like I have time to fuckin’ search ‘Johnny Silverhand Facts.’ Just tell me, you asshole.”

“November 16th,” She has to hit the brakes not to slam straight into the car in front of them. Someone is honking and screaming obscenities at her, but she is laughing so hard she cannot hear them. “What? If you tell me you believe in astrology, I will literally— ”

“Misty would have a fucking _field day_ with this, Johnny.”

“With what?!” he snarls, voice crystal fuckin’ clear in her ear.

“We’ve got the same birthday, old man.” Pretty soon, they are both laughing, and traffic has to maneuver around her because she’s too fucking caught up in the ridiculous stupidity of her existence to move from the spot.

* * *

A lifetime of experiences, of emotions and moments and thoughts help to mold someone into who they are. Who is she, though, when all those things have melded into the same parts of another? She can taste his first sip of beer; hear the echo of the first time he shot a gun ring painfully in her ear. Sometimes, she will look in the mirror and have to blink a few times to see her own face reflected there. How is he so distinct to her and yet they are nothing but overlap inside? When she reaches for another cigarette or shoots tequila at the Afterlife, whose choices brought her there? How can she differentiate between what she feels and what he wants? Is it even possible, anymore?

They are on top of some hideous megatower, watching and waiting for her moment to sneak in and steal some irrelevant data chip. More and more, he is there, on the edges of her perception. His binary form catches the setting sun, silver arm glinting in the light. V watches him, unable and unwilling to look away. Who _is_ he that she is so taken by his existence? Can you love someone you cannot escape, cannot detach from in any meaningful way? Can she call it love, even? In any other world, he would never, could never, be someone she thought twice about. They would hate each other, her too unwilling to yield, him too angry to function beyond his suicidal quest for destruction.

And yet. It’s not any other world, it's _this_ one. He’s softer now, she’s a little rougher. They found the places they didn’t align and altered whatever was necessary to rectify that. In the beginning she would have killed him, wiped his engram without a second thought. Now, though, she is having to come to terms with the fact that she will have to carry on without him and it cripples her. How can he possibly be detangled from her and leave anything remotely whole in his place? V doesn’t even know who she is supposed to be trying to save, in that cold expanse of cyberspace, buried deep within the heart of Arasaka. It’s not herself, not anymore. He has completely fucked up her sense of identity. The things she finds joy in now, were they always the same? Faintly, she thinks, didn’t she hate the sun? Still, she is capable of anger, of disgust, so why don’t they come to mind when she reflects upon all the ways in which she is new and foreign to herself? Is it so bad, the person she has become?

They’ve spent ten months going through this. Ten unbelievably long months. As she pours herself back over them, she can plot perfectly how they got here. It was inevitable, it seems. Even in the beginning, there was a magnetism to them. Maybe this isn’t something that happened in a vacuum, after all. Snippets of time between them, like with her quest to get her stupid cat, or trying to get their hands on the Samurai bootlegs, flicker in her head. This new world she woke up in, all that time ago, without Jackie, with her new ghost, it should have fucking sucked. It didn’t, though, and it’s because he makes her laugh. Once she broke past his posturing, drew out the person capable of more than just hate and fear, they were already falling and there was no way to stop.

Tears well up in her eyes, and finally she looks away from him. People change other people, it's an inevitability of life. Perhaps, when it comes to them, it’s the same idea just on a more intimate scale. All this lamentation on roles and fitting in and the places people occupy in your life. Jackie, Judy, and Panam. River, Kerry, and Vik. These are people who have changed her in all those little ways that come with forming attachments to one another. Who's to say Johnny is any different. It doesn’t matter either way, though. She has to learn to let him go. Pull him from the cavern he has occupied inside her heart and release him into the wild, black yonder. Whatever pieces remain, after, are her responsibility to pick up and glue back in place.

She will miss this, most of all. These fragments of time, moments shared together, that amount to nothing of substance to anyone outside the two of them. V glances back at him and he has shifted, is looking at her with an expression so painfully familiar she chews her cheek to keep the sob down. It was easier, before he admitted it. Before he refused to put to words this cavernous feeling between them that has swallowed them both. Now she can’t pretend anymore and she stands up, leaving the roof and the job and her ghost behind. 

* * *

Tomorrow.

They’ve put every other possible thing to bed. He performed, the joy of which she felt even in her slumber beneath their skin. They blew up Kerry’s manager’s yacht (“Fuckin Seamurai. Jesus tit-fucking Christ, someone put me out of my misery”), and now there was nothing else left to fill the time. No more delays. She would get a bottle of tequila, she would make him take a shot with her, and then she would sleep. Being hungover the day of her potential death seemed like a little too much, even for her. For him. For _them_. She’s never understood the point in poetry; he’s too jaded to care. What ritual would even fit, here at the end of it all? Is there an example, a precursor, to what they have become? Nah, there’s not. And besides, she’s always tired enough to sleep.

Then Judy calls and invites her to go diving.

“Go, V. You need to fuckin’ go.” In one hand, tequila, and in the other, her phone. Johnny is pacing before her in the apartment, raw with something she can’t place.

“Why? It’s just cruel to her, at this point. I could flatline fuckin’ tomorrow, Johnny — ”

“No, you won’t. I made you a promise.” He pauses his prowling to glare at her a moment, before carrying on. “It’s cruel to _yourself_ to stay. You’ve spent the last week runnin’ all over this fucked up city, for me. Might as well do something nice for you.”

“Yeah but, according to you, _you’re_ the one dying tomorrow, Silverhand. Of course, I wanted you to enjoy what could be your last days. I’m not a dick, that’s your role here. If I’m supposed to fuckin’ ‘endure’ beyond whatever bullshit happens tomorrow, then I can just call her then.”

He is still pacing.

She sits on the bed, discarding the liquor and device to the floor. “If it’s cause you wanna fuck her, or something, you can at least tell me. Not sure what happened back there, with Rogue at the drive-in, but I get the feelin’ you never had that ‘happy ending’ so to speak.” Oh is this the ritual she feels like pursuing?

“If I were gonna fuck someone, V, we both know who it would be. But, unfortunately for you, that’s not what this is about. Despite my best efforts, you could die tomorrow, and I don’t feel like causin’ you anymore anguish beyond my daily quota. Go see your girl. Let her lick your wounds, or your cunt, or whatever mushy shit it is you need right now.”

“And if it’s not what I want?” she counters.

“It’s never about what you want, V. That’s the fuckin’ problem. You’ve been so goddamn subsumed by me and this Arasaka bullshit relic, you’ve given up any zest you had for your own god damn existence. Jesus fuckin’ Christ, I’m willing to _die_ for you tomorrow. Please let me pass in peace, knowin’ you aren’t gonna mope around this piece of shit apartment. You’re too good for that. Don’t let the bastards win, not this late in the game.” His hands are on his hips as he stops before her.

“Don’t tell me how to grieve, Silverhand.” She stands and shoves past him, the cold of his shoulder feeling real in a way the floor beneath her hasn’t in months.

“What the fuck are you grievin’ for, you dumb bitch? You get to live. Wake up and feel the sun on your stupid fuckin’ face. I’m the one that has to follow Alt out of the blue and into the goddamned Blackwall. Gonna be reduced to basic fuckin’ binary, consumed by an AI construct of my ex-input.” This is the point of no return. She snaps and turns on him. Physics dictates that it shouldn’t work but she shoves him roughly into the wall by the window all the same. The glass even rattles. How interesting, a small part of her brain thinks. They haven’t really touched before, not significantly. What would be the point?

“It’s you! It’s fucking you, you absolute fucking gonk!” She is screaming, out loud. “I am grieving for _you_ . Christ, Johnny, did you really think I wouldn’t? It’s been too long, too painful a fuckin’ road to get here. You said it yourself, I’m closer to you than anyone. Well proximity is contingent on two fuckin’ people, _kid_. You expect me to, what? Just wake up the day after tomorrow, alone in this meat, and be okay? I get that you’re willfully dense, I know all too well your propensity towards detachment, the disgust that comes with ‘pitiful human feelings’, but you’re not this fucking dumb, Silverhand. Don’t act like it.” Again, the precipice looms. Again, the sharp something lodged in her chest twists.

“Pathetic,” he sneers.

“Yes, we are,” she spits back.

And the levee breaks.

What does it look like, from the outside? She must look certifiable. Still, his body is far more solid than the wall he has her against. He is everywhere. Her skin is on fucking fire with it. He feels so fucking real it’s painful. His lips are bruising against her own. The cold grip he has on her side is crushing. Her own fingers are relentless, pulling at every inch of him she can reach. He smells like her; he has always only ever smelt like her. The blood in her mouth is theirs. This is beyond the pale of sex. This is transcendent.

The fervor with which they writhe is consumptive. She is positively fucking sick with desire for him. There is no time to undress, her thin shirt is torn open until he can get to her tits. Her skintight pants are ripped down and kicked to the side, and she wraps her legs around his waist. The pressing of his cock into the thin fabric of her panties elicits an animal whine from her mouth. Just like before, he whispers “Fuck,” into the skin of her neck and tugs harshly on the nipple between his fingers. This is what poetry is.

Without taking her mouth off of his, she works him out of his pants. His skin is so warm, while the metal of his hand as it squeezes her tit is like ice. How can he feel this real, when there is only her, only the meat that she has occupied for 26 years? Is this an echo of what it would be like? If that is the case, it’s for the best because he would eat her fucking alive.

The moment he slides into her, she cries into the cavern of his mouth, before tossing her head back painfully into the wall. This is the only thing she has wanted for what feels like her whole life. That possessive desire she has when it comes to him crescendos within her. Within them. To whom it belongs is nothing compared to whom they belong. Which, in this moment, and in every moment since they were brought together, is each other. Again, she thinks about the way he is hers and hers alone. Only now, she considers that perhaps, she is his and his alone, too. It’s intoxicating. There is no fight to find a rhythm as he slams himself in and out of her, they’ve been in sync for far too long.

Unlike in her dreams, he recites no dialogue of filthy words. They are too caught up in the ecstasy of what they are feeling. She wants to just stay there, pinned to the wall of her apartment, while the dead rockerboy in her brain fucks her into another state of being. The pent-up aggression, coupled with the actual violence of her desire for him wins out, though. He knows she is close, because there is no way he could not, and she wonders, distantly, if he can finish with her.

“Together, kitten,” he whispers and that is how they come undone. Mind-blowing feels cliché and cheap, but it’s particularly fitting for them. She screams his name into the emptiness as he whispers hers over and over again like sacrilege in her ear. Slowly, they come back to earth, and to each other. Panting, V rests her forehead against his and lets the syrupy slow feeling of contentment settle over her like a blanket. There is no awkward shuffling and detaching of his body from hers, no need to clean. Instead, a brief flicker and he slips into reality once more, leaning besides her against the wall. A deep breath, inhaled, and exhaled as one, and she clenches her jaw.

“Took you long enough.” Her voice is hoarse with use and his subsequent laugh fills her with sunlight. Silence follows and, once her chest stops heaving, she makes her way over to the bed. Johnny glitches into place, occupying the corner of the bunk, facing the window, stretching his impossibly long legs out, forcing her to slip hers on top as she settles in. She lights a cigarette and watches it burn for a moment. This is the softest thing she has ever experienced, and it is breaking her heart.

“Johnny, I — ”

“We can just sit here, V. Ain’t nothin’ left to say that we don’t already know.”

“I can’t do this, not alone.”

“Good thing you aren’t alone.”

“You _know_ what I mean.”

“And so do you, babe.”

“But I don’t — they aren’t who — ” Tears, fucking _tears_ , at a time like this. She puts the cigarette out, having never even taken a drag, and runs her hands down her face. The seams of her body are dissolving, she is overrun with emotion. “How am I supposed to — ”

“I don’t know, but you got no other choice. This the end of the line, shows over, lights have gone fuckin’ dim. All that’s left is to take a bow and get the fuck off the stage.” A heartbeat, a moment. 

She tries not to sob. “It’s so fucking unfair, all of it. I didn’t ask for this. _We_ didn’t ask for this.”

"That’s just life in Night City, V. Doesn’t matter if you don’t wanna do it, no one gives a shit,” His head is bent back, eyes closed. A breath shudders through her. “All you can do is survive, live to push back against the bullshit yet another day.”

“But what about you? You can’t — ”

“I’ve already come and gone. This whole trip has just been me, livin’ on stolen time, lyin’ to myself that it’s gonna have a happy ending.”

"I’d settle for no ending at all.”

"So would I, for what it’s worth.”

“It’s worth everything, at least to me.” So close, V. If only they both weren’t so fuckin’ weak.

"Yeah.” He pauses, and she feels the small something rip into her heart once more. “Yeah, you are.” 

Their eyes meet, across the cavern of her bed and she crawls up to lay beside him, head laid gently upon his thigh. The cold metal of his fingers slowly wind their way through her hair, and it is like this that she finds sleep. In the cold light of the morning, he is still there, impossibly warm and firm beneath her. They march their body to Embers, to Hanako and the end, together.

* * *

In the end, she lets him do it. He’s right. She can’t endanger Panam and the Aldecaldos. It doesn’t matter the promises they made; she can’t take them. V isn’t good at asking for help, and this time is no different. She doesn’t have to ask for his, either. It’s hardwired, implied in total, given before it was even offered. For a moment, though, she stares down at the iron and the cold shudder of death that buzzes up her spine gives her pause. The view from the rooftop _is_ beautiful, just like Misty said. It would be easy; it would be nearly painless. Johnny says he won’t judge her, that it’s her call. But it’s not, not anymore. They’ve gotta put an end to Mikoshi and this is their only chance. It’s beyond what she wants, her autonomy just one more sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. Once, she thinks, such a realization would have disgusted her. Not anymore, though. You can get used to anything, if you go through it enough.

If everything works out, this will be the last time she sees him before the end. They stare at one another and she wishes she weren’t so weak. Assuming all the pieces fall into place, the major ones, at least, the next time they meet will be in the digital hellscape of cyberspace. Should she say goodbye then? What if she doesn’t get the chance, that this moment on the rooftop is all she has? What would she even say? I love you feels so…inconsequential. I’ll miss you doesn’t accurately convey the void he will undoubtedly leave behind. And what of him? Are there no final words?

“I’ll keep your body safe; I’ll get you to the finish line, V.” He glitches into existence beside her. 

“I know.” There are tears in her eyes.

“And when the time comes, you know I’ll — ”

"I do. I know.” She rolls the two options around in her hand, and her eyes catch on the stupid fucking tattoo he made them get. Sick with desire, sick with love, sick with loneliness. She was born ill. There is no cure for the damage she carries. She traces the lines etched into her arm, and her fingers feel like cold metal.

“V, I — ”

“Don’t worry, Silverhand. I won’t make you say it.” She swallows the pill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ Gosh-Emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter 
> 
> <3


	7. seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> This one is a bit short, just because the next few are so long. Also, we have an Official Chapter Count. Only six fucking more than my very first estimation.   
> I've significantly dropped off on responding to comments because I honestly am just repeating myself at this point in every answer, but I read each one and melt. The support and response from you guys is the highlight of my whole year tbh. Thank you thank you thank you.  
> To the Rainbow Cadenza, I love you, you feral children. Thank you for being the best cheerleaders.  
> Enjoy the POV shift <3

“Johnny, you need to see this,” Rogue’s voice pulls his attention from where it was focused on the locked door barring their way. She is bent over a terminal, code scrolling across the screen.

“The fuck is this, Rogue? We both know data ain’t—”

“Shut up and look at this shard,” she ejects the small plastic device from the computer and hands it to him. He slides it into V’s neural port and immediately his vision is overcome with a cacophony of overlapping information. It takes him almost a minute to process it all. Ice, brought on by the brutal combination of fear and hope, stabs into his—her— _their_ abdomen.

"Rogue,” his voice trembles, despite his efforts to remain calm. “What am I lookin’ at?” 

“It looks like a temperature controlled storage room, near Mikoshi. Johnny, I think those are bodies. Specifically, I’m pretty sure the one coded 8811-16-3202,” If V were here, she would be shaking in anticipation. She’s not, though. So he remains frozen, rigid, terrified, “is yours”.

* * *

“What about the meat suits?” V looks up at him from where she is trembling in the digital booth, wrinkling her brow. Even here, reduced to cold code, her gaze is magnetic. He cannot fucking believe she is still gonna die.

“I assume you are referring to the ones in cold storage, near the heart of Mikoshi?”

“The fuck else would I be talking about, Alt?”

“The existence of your original body does nothing to help V. _Her_ body will not make it another six months with her engram inside it. It has been remade in your biological image. It is yours.”

“Of fucking course it is,” V starts laughing, slow at first like some kind of gonked movie villain and he thinks his girl has finally fuckin’ cracked. Neither he nor Alt say anything as she processes the end of her existence. “I was dead the moment Dex put that bullet in my skull. Everything since then has been nothin’ but a pointless performance.”

“So what— “

"You, in essence, have two bodies. V has none.” Fuck if Alt wasn’t terrible at this. It doesn’t matter that they are nothing but binary, floating through cyberspace, Johnny can see the pain written on V’s face clear as day. She shudders, and despite their separation (this is the first time since the beginning and the void yawns within him), he can feel the tears bead in her eyes.

“Well Silverhand, looks like you’ve got quite the fuckin’ choice here.” His merc chokes on the sob in her throat.

“Alt, can we put V back in her body?” 

“Yes, but again, she will—”

“Alt! Fuck! We get it.” It’s not really fair to direct his anger at her but honestly, how the fuck could she not take V’s stupid meat into account? It’s the fuckin’ center of all of this. That stupid voice in the back of his head wonders if Alt’s time in cyberspace removed her ability to consider such ‘trivial’ things. “Can you put me back into mine?”

“Oh fuck _you_ , Silverhand. No!” V jumps to her feet, the booth vanishing into the digital nothing beneath him. She stalks over to him and pushes him hard enough to hurt. “You are _not_ sendin’ me back out there just to die slowly, rottin’ from the inside out. You are taking this stupid fuckin’ body because it is _yours_ , do you hear me?! I am not going to fuckin’ _die_ just for you not to take it.”

“I don’t want your goddamn body! I’m not condemin’ you to death here, V. There is a perfectly good pile of blood and bone frozen like a meat-sicle out there for me to take. Fuck, what kind of asshole you take me for?”

“The kind who doesn’t fuckin’ hand me over to die, bleeding out into my own skin. The kind who doesn’t fuckin’ _reject_ the last god damn thing I have left to give!”

“Wearin’ your skin, walkin’ around havin’ to see your fuckin’ face in every passing mirror, no. No, V. I’m not doing it. Wasn’t it you that said not to tell you how to grieve? Don’t be such a hypocrite, babe, it’s a bad look.”

“So what,” The venom in her is an old, old friend. He never thought he’d see it mirrored back at himself once more. “You get to just step right back into your old life, like none of this ever mattered? Perfectly preserved body, no need for this broken one. Johnny Silverhand, back again to burn the fuckin’ city down. Go take up your stupid little throne, reign alongside Rogue at the Afterlife. You’ve just destroyed Arasaka’s best kept secret, what’s next? Blow the Crystal Palace outta the fuckin’ sky?” She spits at him, disgust so deeply etched into her features he almost can’t pick out the fear lurking underneath.

“So that’s what this is, then. You think I’d just slip you back into your meat and fuck off? I made a promise, V. Even here, at the end of all this. Fuck we are digital constructs standin’ in fuckin’ _cyberspace_ , and you still don’t trust me.” He grabs her arms, digs his fingers into her. Her eyes are wide with hate and terror and heartache. Her chest heaves between them and he draws her close, pressing his forehead to hers. “Just because I never said it out loud doesn’t make it untrue, babe.” Coward.

“There is nothing left for me, no miracle cure or road not traveled, Johnny. We tried everything.” She trembles in his grasp and it hurts. Every part of him is so attuned to every part of her, now, that he needs no tether to feel the way her lungs constrict, the pull of her stomach clenching in fear.

It’s been ten months, but it feels like an eternity has passed as they’ve slowly spiraled to this center point. V tugs at his binary heart and he wants to hate her for it. She has become such a weakness for him; a source of soft mushy bullshit he never thought himself capable of prior to their meeting. He can’t remember who he was before her. He knows it’s pointless to lament, but he never fucking asked for this. His life was over, or so he thought. And then suddenly, he found himself slipping into another person’s skin and she had the _audacity_ to make room for him. Couldn’t she have just been a fucking bitch? Couldn’t she have just hated him like everyone else?

He has always been a dick. He doesn’t know how not to be. Second nature, first reaction, whatever bullshit psychiatrist terms you wanna put on it. Sure, he’s pushing people away to keep himself safe or he’s drowned his soft and fluffy side under a tsunami of drugs and booze. Pick your favorite answer, he doesn’t care too. Before all this, before V and his digital purgatory, Johnny Silverhand knew what he wanted out of life and most of the time, he got it. Theft was beneath him. He never asked for shit, people gave it to him. For someone so rude, people sure did love to please him. Gluttons for punishment, all of ‘em. He used to think he was better than them, that he was above it all. He’s not sure when that stopped and if it’s his own personal growth, or something more insidious thanks to V. It doesn’t really matter, though. Change is inevitable, and the catalyst only carries as much value as you give it.

In his old life, he would have berated her kindness, needled at her insecurities, laughed at her loneliness. Not to say he didn’t try in his new life, either. Because he fucking did. She just didn’t care. Every time he mocked her for helping those whores from Clouds or letting a bunch of redneck fucking nomads take advantage of her netrunning skills, she just rolled her eyes. Most people would have told him to fuck off, and would have left him behind, like he wanted. V couldn’t, though. There was no separating them. Either they would have killed one another, or they would have evolved, and it looks like, even in death, you’re never too far gone to learn. She’s made him stop and think, he’s made her shut up and do.

He cannot fucking believe he loves her as much as he does.

“Only had ten months. Doubt we tried it all. ‘Sides, I didn’t have a body then. Far more useful with my own set of skin.”

“You taught me that—”

“Shut up, I’m a terrible fuckin’ role model.” It makes her laugh and the warmth that spreads through him is like fire. How could he expect himself to do this, any of this, without her?

“There is a third option.” Alt’s disembodied voice echoes around them. He had honestly forgotten she was there.

“Fuckin’ spill it.”

“It would require Johnny to get your body into a deep freeze almost immediately. He could go back, in his own body, and I put you onto the relic construct. It would function as intended, only, I cannot alter it to allow it to work quite the same way it has between the two of you thus far.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’ll be stuck, in cyberhell, until what? A suitable slab of meat can be procured?” Disgust, again, on her face.

“That or, through some other means beyond my current understanding, Johnny is able to repair the damage done to your original body. You will have to find someone else capable of putting you back into it, however.”

“Couldn’t reach you again, beyond the Blackwall?”

“I will not be there, no. I am going…. elsewhere.” He doesn’t feel like processing how goddamn ominous that sounded.

“Why can’t she just go back in her own body?”

“Because then you will only have, at most, six months to solve the issue of her impending death,” V looks away from Alt, out past the limits of the precipice they stand upon, into the endless black. “I will leave you both to decide,” and the massive specter of his ex-input-turned-omnipotent-AI vanishes. V walks to the edge and sits down, dangling her legs over the abyss. He follows.

“Rogue’s dead.” Honestly, what else can he even say? The cold code of his heart twist and he tries not to think of pointless her death was.

"Shit, Johnny, I’m so sorry.” Doesn’t need to be tethered to her to know she feels guilt.

“Yeah well, she died for me, for her. Not for you, so don’t go carryin’ that weight.”

He sits beside her, and their shoulders brush. He’d hold her hand if he wasn’t such a fucking coward. Just found out his best choom is dying and the only comfort he can offer is a bunch of stupid fucking words. 

"You gonna go back?”

“Dunno, honestly.” _I will if you will_ is what he doesn’t say. “What would I even do? Rogue’s dead, Kerry’s moved on. ‘M sure I’m wanted for at least one or two acts of terrorism.” She scoffs, smiling just a little. 

“Wonder what the statute of limitations is on that.”

“Well, already flatlined once so…” He trails off. Banter and insults is their love language but there is too much pressing in on them for it to work.

“I want to go back, into my body,” she says as Johnny opens his mouth to assure her that he will keep her construct safe.

“What happened to not wantin’ to rot from the inside out?”

“I don’t wanna be a ghost in your machine, either. Honestly, I don’t think we are gonna figure out a fix it for all this and I don’t wanna stay in purgatory, suspended, while you waste the rest of your new life tryin’ solve the unsolvable.”

“So now you’re tellin’ me how I have to live my life?”

“No, I’m tellin’ you how I’m choosing to end mine.” The idea of a world in which V does no longer exists makes his skin itch, his heart race.

“If you feel like givin’ up, why come back at all?”

“Fuck you.” Any residual anger she has barely clings to the insult.

“Thirty seconds ago you were screamin’ at me about how fuckin’ terrible I am for not wantin’ to give you your body back.” 

“Yeah well, thirty seconds ago I hadn’t considered what I could be goin’ back too.”

He’s so taken by her it borders on self-destructive. If you had told him that there would come a time that he was genuinely _smitten_ with something, let along another person, he would have beat you just for the implication he was someone so easily held down by ‘base human entanglements’. Now, though. You can get used to anything, if you experience it often enough.

* * *

“Easy now, V.”

She is wet, absolutely soaking wet, and _freezing_. Her body shakes and she struggles to focus her vision. Slowly, the soft flashing of red light illuminates enough of the space around her, allowing her to take in the details. This must be the heart of Arasaka, the final resting place of Mikoshi. Johnny hovers over her, like he has a million times before. Memories of cyberspace flicker through her brain and then she is hunched over, puking blood. Ahh, the joys of being alive.

“Breathe, kid.”

“Don’t call me k-kid.” She retches again but keeps it down. She takes his advice, however, and goes slow, catching her breath. Once she feels more in control of herself, she sits up, and gazes up at his face. At first, he just looks the same as he has every day for the last ten months but then his form stays solid, no glitches ripple across his features and her tender heart races.

“Look like you’re gonna hurl, again.” V reaches out to touch him and he catches her hand in his, stopping her. Warm, warm, so _fucking_ warm and alive. “No time for this. C’mon.” Using his hold on her, he pulls her to her feet. The room spins, her stomach heaves, and she nearly collapses right back down. Johnny keeps her upright, metal shoulder slipped beneath her arm. Her head rolls slightly and she realizes he’s clad in what she can only assume are his underwear. Another time, any other time really, and she’d burn under the ways her imagination would run wild with such a discovery.

“Your cl-clothes?”

“Darlin, you’re _wearin_ most of my fuckin’ clothes,” V tries to laugh and wretches instead. “Please don’t puke on them. Again,” He adds, and she fights to regain control of her breathing.

“W-where are we going?”

“Honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’m sure Wayland didn’t hang around, the job Rogue paid him to do was done. Didn’t really expect to be the one wakin’ up back here, anyway.”

“C-c-call Panam, have her h-h-help.”

“Why don’t you call her, I’m busy fuckin’ carryin you.”

“Because I’m about to f-f-faint.”

“What? Fuck! Not—”

A spike of pain rips through her brain and everything fades to black.

* * *

She wakes up, a day or so later, warming in the sunlight that beams through her apartment window. Her skull feels full of cotton, heavy, and congested and her whole body feels like it’s been thrown from the top of a mega building. With a groan, she sits up and takes in her surroundings. At first she thinks she’s alone, but then, of course; she remembers Johnny and his—wait no. He’s not—

"You’re awake!” A man’s voice from somewhere to her right. Vik steps out from her washroom, holding a tray of food, complete with a bowl of hot soup like some kind of ad for cold medicine. He sets it gently at the edge of her bunk and pulls up a nearby chair to sit before her. Her vision swims, her skin sweats, she smells of antiseptic and blood.

“What happened?”

“Dunno, honestly. You’d have to ask Johnny. He and Panam barreled into my clinic the night before last, carryin’ you. He mentioned somethin’ about borrowed time and, after tellin’ me you were sufferin’ from another relic attack, left, taking Panam with him.” Her face contorts in confusion.

“But what? Where? Where are they now?” Every worst case scenario her brain instantly conjures up is the result of her inability to trust, a lifetime of deals gone bad, and poor self-esteem, and, rationally, she _knows_ this. Doesn’t stop her from goin’ there all the same, though.

“Again, dunno. It’s mostly just been Misty and I, although Judy, think that was her name, stopped by earlier to check in. Said she got a crazy text from Panam.”

“Johnny didn’t say anything about where he was going?” The pitying look that Vik offers her does nothing to calm her fears.

“Honestly V, I assumed he told you before droppin’ you off,” She just stares at the ripperdoc and tries to understand what the fuck is going on. She _knows_ Johnny. Right? Doubt pulls at her seams and she shakes it off. No. She’s not gonna doubt him. They’ve been through too much, come too far. He’s not just gonna abandon her now.

Right? The silence in her head is deafening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ gosh-emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter
> 
> It's only gonna get sadder <3


	8. eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> Thank you everyone for all the feedback and comments and kudos, they melt the cold icy prison of my heart <3  
> But also a legitimate serious thank you to Viper (@absurdiist), for whom without, this ending would not be nearly as cohesive and in character as it is. You're a treasure. Same with the rest of the silversluts in the discord. 
> 
> Enjoy <3

Nearly four fucking weeks. Four miserable, heart breaking weeks go by without a fucking word from either of them. As soon as she’s able, she calls Panam (whose phone is off), Kerry, every single fucking Aldecaldo, Judy, the lot. No one knows where the fuck they are. Her small band of merry men cycle through her apartment where she is forced to remain until the injuries that she--he-- _they_ sustained in Arasaka, as well as the trauma of her other half being ripped from her brain, heal. Vik is morose when he agrees with Alt’s estimate of six months. He says that, if anything, the AI was being generous. Misty sleeps in her bed most nights of that first week, if only to make sure she doesn’t die. It’s pretty touch and go in the early days, especially when she tries to sleep. Her brain can’t handle the sudden absence of the person it was in the process of being rewritten for and any attempts to slip into REM are met with extreme pain, and even a few seizures. Her impending doom has never felt so close.

Once Vik, but mostly Misty, is sure she’s not gonna flatline at any moment, they start giving her space. Except, that is so much worse. She takes walks around her dumpy apartment, even manages to make it to the end of her hallway once or twice, before the dizziness takes her. There is nothing but silence from her ghost. He’s not a ghost, not anymore. 

Her first night spent totally alone she cries until she pukes. She’s not even sure exactly who or what she is crying for, but the catharsis helps. She falls asleep on the floor of her sunken living room and doesn’t wake up for 16 hours. Judy visits and brings her new braindances to fill her time. Kerry is the first person to get her to actually leave the building, even if it’s by his ludicrously expensive flying private car. They journey aimlessly around Night City from the air and he chatters on about Us Cracks and their new tour. V says little but is immensely grateful at his ability to fill the silence. 

By the beginning of the third week, people stop mentioning Johnny. 

Mitch swears up and down that, despite what her “no good parasitic ass of an output” is like, Panam would never up and abandon her people. V is too wrecked with emotion to argue Mitch’s presumptive assumptions of her relationship – what a ridiculously unfit word—with her once ghost. No one can give her a solid enough reason, though, to explain their absence. It’s not like they even knew each other. While she never could remember all 31 hours Johnny spent dragging her meat through hell, she was pretty damn sure he never interacted with anyone from her side of their life.

The worst part, though, is the loneliness. It was stupid of her, in retrospect, to get so used to him. Even if everything had worked out exactly how it was supposed to, Johnny would still be gone, and V would once again have to contend with that void inside her. During those stolen moments inside cyberspace, though, she stupidly let herself hope. Not that she would live, no, her mortality was very much something she couldn’t escape. Instead, she was hopeful that she would never have to know what it felt like to try and go on without him. He had a _body_ , for fuck’s sake. Something real she could touch, feel the warmth of it beneath her fingers. V would have happily entertained any fucked up gonk idea he came up with to save her, gone along with whatever wildly dangerous scheme, just because all of it meant more time with him. That’s why she came back. _Him._ There are other reasons, smaller ones, ones less vested in the thing she has molded her heart into. Honestly, though, she’s terrible at goodbyes, never knowing what to say, never having people worth saying goodbye too. At least with Johnny, he’d already know.

V wanted to know what it would feel like to press herself against him, be kissed and fucked and held by him beyond the scope of her brain piecing together what his digital touch could be like. The feeling of his hands, his real flesh and metal hands, on her would have been enough to suffer through this slow death. She wanted him to hold her hand, when her time came. Tell her he loved her, really say it to her, and not just let his feelings bleed across the lines of who they once were. Wanted to go out knowin’ that she had done just one fucking thing right. That she had gotten _one thing_ from this shitty life, this pit of a city, that couldn’t be stolen away before she slipped off into the unknown. And he’s not even fucking there.

Then Panam comes home. 

V is attempting to clean her guns, even if she is in no state to use them, when the missing Nomad calls. Her hands shake so bad she drops her phone twice before she can pick up.

“H-hello?” Her heart is racing. 

“V? Hey, it’s Panam!”

“Where the fu—”

“I’m outside your place, can you come down?” V pulls the phone away to stare at in disbelief for a moment. 

“Where’s Joh—”

“It will be so much easier if you just come down, I’ll be waiting.” And then she hangs up and V is left staring into the middle distance. 

It is a serious challenge for her to pull herself together long enough to get dressed without hyperventilating. Putting on shoes has never taken so long in her life. Eventually, though, she is riding the elevator down to the ground level and trying not to imagine Johnny glitching into existence besides her, leaning on the railing, some stupid insult readied at the tip of his tongue. Panam being the only person in her truck hurts way more than V was ready for and she chews into her lip until it bleeds to keep from sobbing. As she slides her bruised body across the seat, she looks for any trace that he was once there.

“V, hey. I—”

“Where is he, Panam?” Her voice breaks. Silverhand has reduced her to nothing but a broken heart and an empty void in his absence. She has no time—no fucking time—for bullshit. Panam gives her an anguished look and for a heartbeat, V is sure he’s died. He’s slipped beyond the places where she can follow and there is nothing in the world that hurts more than that. Tears spill over onto her sallow cheeks. 

“I can’t tell you.” 

“What?” She is asking before the words even register.

“I cannot tell you.” Panam repeats. Fury builds inside V’s chest.

“And just why the fuck not?”

“Because your unbelievably irritating output asked me not too and, honestly, his reasons were solid enough that I’m obliging.”

“What the fuck? Panam you have—”

“V, do you trust me?” The question stops her in her tracks. An immediate confirmation slips to the front of her mouth, but she holds it back. _Does_ she trust Panam? It’s been four weeks with no communication. The nomad must see the doubt on her face. “V, please. Do you trust me?”

“I—yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Then when I say I can’t tell you, believe me that it’s for a good reason.”

“Well, I—is he coming back?” Her voice still trembles but his continued place among the living keeps the worst at bay. Panam looks away, focusing her gaze on the city beyond her window. V is pretty sure that if heart beats any faster, it will break. Nothing but the sounds of the world carrying on around them, the noise cutting through their silence. “Panam, please, is he coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you won’t tell me?” It is so much easier to be angry than hurt and V is tired of choosing the hard way. 

“V, please—”

“No, fuck you Panam. Keep your fucking secrets, I don’t need this. I’ve got fuckin’ weeks left, and this is the homecoming you bring with you? You just up and leave without a fucking trace for four weeks and expect me to just be okay with that? Don’t call me again unless you intend to actually help.” V is out of the car, door slamming in her wake, before Panam can respond. She doesn’t look back, for fear of breaking down.

* * *

At night, V tries very hard not to think about Panam possibly being the one to touch Johnny before her. It was such a wondrous thing to realize in cyberspace that, in the same way he had taken her, she could take him, but now it is just a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. Snapshots of what it would look like, how betrayed she would feel, haunt her for the weeks to come. Dying is bringing out the worst in her.

* * *

Eventually she has to do something other than sit around her apartment and waste away. She is in literally no condition to work, the thought of shooting a gun so far beyond the realm of her capabilities. No, there will be no more skulking around scav hideouts, stealing data sticks and liquifying people’s brains from the shadows. Instead, she finds herself spending more and more time with Kerry. He’s the only person who knows how it feels to be used up and left behind by Johnny, the only one left who can commiserate the special way Silverhand can hurt those foolish enough to love him. It’s a terrible, shitty club to belong too but it's nice not to be alone.

Kerry takes her to absurdly expensive restaurants, far beyond anything she could ever hope to afford. Once upon a time, all she wanted was to cement herself in the history books of this cruel, breathtaking city, reach the major leagues and eat like a queen every night. Now that Kerry has given her a taste, she realizes it's like every other hollow distraction, just better dressed. Still, it’s nice to pretend. 

When he’s not forcing her to eat everything that comes across her plate (“You look like shit, V. Dying or not, you gotta eat. Try the steak, it’s real cow.”), he drags her to concerts. Music was never a thing V expended much energy on, at least not before Johnny. Her appreciation for the art just stings now, another change he brought upon her, another reminder of how much he’s impacted every bit of who she remains in his absence. Another piece of him, left behind in her. She sits in the VIP sections of gilded clubs across the city, watches Us Cracks and Kerry screaming on stage, and wonders if Johnny is bent over someone else at that moment, fucking them the way he once fucked her. Does he even remember what she tasted like? The way it felt to bury himself inside her in the most intimate of ways? 

Kerry brings her back to his house a few times, mostly because they are both too drunk to function, and he’s worried she won’t get safely back to her apartment in such a state. Most nights she just sleeps on one of his several, outrageously decadent couches, and he has his cook make her breakfast in the morning. Six weeks into her return to the real world, minus the only person who ever made her feel whole, they are ‘celebrating’ the end of his tour one late Saturday night.

“Wouldn’t believe the smell, honestly. The one and only time I tried to cook, and I just fucked it up masterfully.” They snort with laughter in tandem and for a small second, she is content. Kerry hands her the tequila bottle (even now, vodka is out of the question) and she takes another swig. Her stomach rolls, the five star dinner and top shelf booze not mixing all that well, and she leans her head back, closing her eyes a moment. They are sprawled against one of the windows that make up most of his house's walls, Night City alive and thriving beyond the hills. Reminds her of another night, a lifetime ago, with another former rockerboy.

“I miss him, Kerry.” One of their unspoken rules is they don’t mention Johnny unless absolutely necessary. He’s always on her mind, of course, but if she doesn’t talk about him her performance of ‘doin’ okay’ sells far better. 

“I know, babe. I wanna say it’ll get easier, but it never does. Just gets quieter. He’s too good at entrances not to leave an exit wound.”

“Can’t believe I was stupid enough to love him.”

“You’re not the first, I promise.”

“I know, that’s the worst fucking part. I _know_ what he is like. I just guess I was naïve enough to think that whatever it was we were becoming was different. An exception, to a lifetime of his shortcomings.”

“V, I heard him talk about you, he—”

“Don’t, it doesn’t matter now.” She takes another drink and passes the bottle back. Kerry drains the last of it and the glass clinks to the tile beside him. Softly in the distance, ‘Never Fade Away’ plays and she takes a ragged breath. “Its just this fucking loneliness, Ker, it’s killin’ me faster than the relic ever could. I had nothing until I had Jackie and I lost him so abruptly, and Johnny was just _there_ , bleeding into me, the edges of us too soft to define and he was all I had. You don’t know, you can’t imagine, how it felt to have something just for me. No one could take him, could fucking touch him, because he was mine. _Mine_. It didn’t matter how terrible he used to be, the way he consumed people and left them empty shells of what they once were. I loved him anyway. I watched him change, Kerry. Watched him grow beyond that rigid symbol he died tryin’ to be. 

“We sat at his gravesite and he told me I was the only thing he never fucked up, that he felt relief waking up, knowin’ I was still there. He gave me fucking hope that I could be beloved in a way I’d never known. Matter to someone, really matter, and not just be a means to an end. All I do is work for others, solve their problems, and it was Johnny that showed me that I’m only as lonely as I let myself be. He’s the only person I’ve ever bothered giving my heart too and he left it, and me, fuckin’ behind.” Kerry’s hand clings tightly to hers and she cries for the millionth time.

A terrible desire, obtrusive in a way that only Johnny used to be, comes over her. Kerry is warm, real, besides her and she has forgotten the way her body feels when another person touches it. Ten fucking months spent remolding herself in Silverhand’s image and he’s not even there to reap the unintentional bullshit he’s sown. When she imagined her life leading up to her death, it was Johnny’s hand entwined in her own, not Kerry’s but maybe he can be enough. It’s disgusting, to think of someone whose been nothing but a friend to her, as a means to an end but fuck, maybe Silverhand left more than just heartache behind. If there is anyone that knows how to use a person, it’s him. V is searching for traces of her absent parasite in every part of herself but maybe it’s in Kerry that she will find them. Kerry knew Johnny, and what else is left of him but memories and heartache? He is the only person left that connects her to her former ghost and, right then, she is desperate enough to settle for anything. 

“I know,” is all he says. It’s all he needs to say. They look at one another, the ache Silverhand left in them a tangible, nearly visible, thing, and she kisses him. 

He kisses her back, but none of it feels right. Their jagged edges are too similar to align. It’s not Kerry she needs, it’s not V he wants. A valiant effort is put forth, she even reaches for his face, cradling his cheek, carding a hand through his hair. If she tries hard enough, she can pretend this is what she wants. Eventually, he pulls away, pressing his forehead to her. “I’m sorry V, I’m so fucking sorry.” His tears are hers and she sobs harder. This stupid exercise in selfishness only leaves her feeling worse. If he were there, she thinks even Johnny would be disappointed. He’s not, though, so she is sure to do the work for him. 

Kerry holds her for a long time, after, and they never bring it up. Again, he’s the only one who understands, and there is no explanation needed when it comes to trying to mend a broken heart. Besides, she’s dying; what’s the point?

* * *

Her--his-- _their_ jacket is missing, but she wears his dog tags every single day. They were a symbol, once, of a promise a man made to her in a rundown hotel room from the broken days of his past. A physical manifestation of his loyalty to her, his pledge to give her back her life, when the choice was presented to him. Now, though, they are just a bitter reminder of how close she came to knowin’ what it felt like to be whole. She doesn’t want her feelings towards him to turn to hate, but this cavernous void he has left her with makes that hard. 

Everything is rapidly becoming too much. It hurts to eat; physical activity beyond even the most basic of actions leaves her continuously breathless; her dreams are exclusively nightmares. Every shower ends with her throwing up blood and bile. It’s so full of pieces of her, it doesn’t even properly drain. Her hair thins, her cybernetics fail. She is, just as she fucking knew she would be, rotting from the inside out. She’d kill herself, but first she would have to kill her hope and it’s the only solid thing left inside her. 

* * *

“Hey V, it’s Panam, again. I know you’re screenin’ my calls, and I know you’re upset, but we should talk. I miss you. I—I don’t regret what I did, but I need you to know I did it for you. You’d just run off, do something gonked and dangerous and I don’t want you to flatline alone out there, chasing a ghost. I called Judy, she said you went divin’ together. Well, more like a dip, but still. She says you’re doing a great job of telling everyone you’re okay. We know you’re not. Please answer, V. I miss you. I’m sorry. Don’t let him ruin everything you have left.”

* * *

For the first 25 years of her life, she was comfortable in the silence of her own presence. But then she spent ten months, stuck with no reprieve, listening to the nonstop complaints of a dead asshole, terrorist, rockerboy. And she got used to it. Got used to looking to him for guidance, to listening to his opinion. He always had some comment, point, joke, to make. Like every other part of their time together, she learned to love it. The interjections were a balm, just one more way he wormed his way into her heart, softening the spaces where they overlapped. Johnny became the devil on her shoulder, playing the critical king of the high court of her consciousness, passing judgement upon the masses from the safety of their brain.

Now the only thing that reigns is silence, and it burns most of all.

* * *

“Comin!” She shouts, struggling to pull on a pair of jeans. The pizza guy is early for the first time in memory and of course she has no fucking pants on. She trips, her balance shit now that she’s mostly dead, and tumbles into the wall and the person knocks again. “One second!” She finally wrestles her foot through the bottom of the pant leg and limps over to the door, throwing it open. “Sorry, I—” 

And there he fucking is, Johnny _goddamn_ Silverhand, leaning on her goddamn door frame, his—hers— _their_ goddamn sunglasses on his face. His familiar mouth is bent into that signature fucking smirk Rogue once recognized in her own features. She stares at him and says nothing. Her heart is in her throat. 

“Well, well, well kid. You look like shit,” and he has the fucking audacity to _laugh_. V howls and launches herself at him. It appears her body isn’t quite spent yet as she pulls the last of her strength from her waning muscles to beat the shit out of him. She punches him harder than she has ever hit another human being, for all that is worth in her current, deteriorating state. He takes her first one straight on to the face but catches the next. Johnny holds her arm, to prevent another beating, and she simply switches tactics, flicking her left wrist to pull out the mantis blade. He ducks at the abrupt appearance of the razor sharp weapon and wraps his arm around her middle, pinning her arms to her sides. He picks her up like she weighs nothing (She’s lost 15 pounds since coming back from Arasaka and she was already underfed to begin with) and walks them both over the threshold of her apartment. The door slides easily shut behind him. 

“Gotta admit, not the homecomin’ I was expecting.” 

“I’m going to fucking _kill_ you, you monumentous fucking asshole!” She is screaming and he holds her tighter to keep her from hitting him once more. She struggles, kicking at him, but his fucking body isn’t dying, and she makes no impact. “Johnny put me the fuck down or I swear to god I am going to—”

“What, kill me? Said that already, babe. Need a different threat.” Still, he slowly loosens his grasp on her and jumps away the moment she has control over her arms. He throws his hands up in surrender and backs away a few feet. Her chest heaves, her lungs burn. V hasn’t exerted this much energy in two months. “Can’t answer your pressin’ questions if you kill me, V”. He’s just standing there in her living room, like nothing is wrong. Like she’s not half dead and wholly broken.

“Who says I have questions, Silverhand? Who’s to say I’m not filled with nothing but all consuming fuckin’ _hate_ for you? Hmm?” 

“For one thing, you’re cryin,” She reaches up to her face and her fingers come away wet. It just makes her angrier. She is shaking so bad she has to lean into the wall for support. Johnny takes a half step towards her but stops after she gives him a withering sneer. “V, I shou—”

“Nine. Fucking. Weeks.” She spits out. “Sixty-four fucking days of my very short life have come and gone while you were, what, out playin’ fuckin’ folk hero somewhere? Why’d you send Panam home? She get sick of your bullshit, tired of playin’ second fiddle to whatever insane mission you’ve been on? Wouldn’t be fuckin’ surprised, you black fuckin’ hole of a person, you just consume and consume and fuckin’ _consume_ until there is nothin’ fucking left.” It appears that some of her feelings have, in fact, turned ever so slightly to hate. 

“Listen here, prin—”

“No _you_ fucking listen. I came back for _you_ , Johnny. I signed my own fuckin’ death warrant for you. I knew I would spend these final six months decayin’ inside my own skin and I willingly accepted that end because I wanted to spend the rest of my life, no matter how fuckin’ small and insignificant it was, with you. And up until you decided to just fucking leave me here, alone, I was sure; 100% completely sure that you felt the same way. Do you know what I’ve been doing the last nine weeks, Johnny? While you were out, doin’ somethin’ totally necessary I’m sure. I’ve been _dying_. Do you have any fucking clue what that feels like, to know that you are dying, that your body is callin’ it quits, and there isn’t fuck all you can do about it? Do you know—”

“There is something you can do about it.”

“Oh and what is this miracle fuckin’ cure you’ve abandoned me for? Hunt down Hellman, squeeze some otherwise unknown secret out of him?”

“Got you a body, a new one.”

“I don’t want some poor fuckin—”

“It’s _your_ body, V.”

“What do you mean—”

“Are you done?”

“ _Excuse me_?” The audacity of it all makes her dizzy and she lets her mantis blades extend further, the agony it causes be damned. 

“Are you done screamin’ at me over shit that’s already happened?”

“What the fuck—”

“Good,” He saunters over to her bed and stretches out on it before looking up at her expectantly. She just stares at him, open mouthed, and doesn’t move. Johnny shrugs and removes his sunglasses. No longer made of code, she can see the soft imperfections in the skin of his face. A lifetime was lived in this body he’s wearing. It appears her one and only punch barely left a mark. V cannot comprehend the manner in which he is behaving. 

“Johnny—”

“So, as Panam and I are draggin’ your useless ass out of Arasaka, she is totally bitchin’ at me about ‘secretly’ havin’ a body as if all this has been some exercise in futility for the fuck of it. And I told her that I thought my meat had decayed into worm food decades ago ‘neath some pile of trash out in the Badlands,”

“Johnny, pl—”

“We are loading you into that Basilisk, which _fuck_ is it cramped in there, when I noticed an interestin’ addition to my old friend here,” He pulls up the black tank top that is a twin to the one she wears and she can’t help herself from leaning over to look. A small, metal hexagonal something is latched onto the skin between two of his ribs. “It’s a trackin’ device. Seems like Arasaka didn’t wanna risk these meat suits wonderin’ off somewhere they didn’t belong.”

“Okay, and? Arasaka is currently crumbling from the inside out. Still doesn’t explain why you—”

“It’s not Arasaka’s device. It’s Biotechnica’s,” Her wasting brain struggles to recall the genetic engineering corpo responsible for most of the petroleum used by the NUSA and Night City. “The moment I stepped out of the building, it started going off. Admittedly my chrome is about 50 years outta date but even I could see what was happening. We dropped you off at Vik’s and delta’d as fast as fuckin’ possible.”

“Why didn’t—”

“Couldn’t risk your life, not after I had just gone through all that fuckin’ work to save it,”

“You could have fucking called.”

“Yeah, Panam said that about every fuckin’ day for the first two weeks. At first it was just a precaution thing but, afterwards, I don’t know,” he trails off a moment, sitting up to distract from his own inability to communicate. “Soon as we were far enough from Night City, I decided the best course of action was to let ‘em catch me. See what they had to say. Panam didn’t like that idea, wanted me to call you. Said no, so she left. Guessin’ by your reaction just now she kept her promise to say nothing.”

“And that took nine fucking weeks? Not even a fucking _text message_ , Johnny. Everyone thought you were dead or gone. Kerry got so drunk he fucking cried, wanted to have a funeral, if not a fuckin’ arson party in your honor. Do you have any fucking idea how hard this has been? I—” she stops, willing herself not to sob. He doesn’t deserve it. He deserves nothing from her anymore. 

“V, I’m—”

“There is no excuse for this bullshit, none. What about my body?”

“I stole some tech, cornered a gonk or two, and got them to confess a few insider corpo secrets about Biotechnica’s cloning methods. Turns out they were contracted for life to the hellhole and were all too happy to help in exchange for bein ‘kidnapped’.” He says it like it was the easiest thing in the world. 

“You _cloned_ me?” The shock masks some of her hate, for a moment.

“Not yet, no. Need your blood and spit for that. Called Panam on my way in, had her take our new friends and their data over at Vik’s. All that’s left s’for you to get over there, let the ripperdoc work his magic.” She should be excited, thrilled, that there is a possibility of survival beyond her death sentence. Unfortunately, it’s completely overshadowed by the ways in which he has broken her heart.

For the first time in their shared lives, there is nothing but awkward silence. She has, unwilling or otherwise, spent the last sixty-four days relearning how to be alone. The amount of hours spent crying and cursing and aching are too much to overlook. She cannot fucking believe he has done this, after everything. It would have been better if he’d stayed gone. Pulling the blades back into her arms, she tries not to hiss in pain as she wraps them around her torso to keep from shaking. He finally looks up at her, but she has already looked away. 

“You can go, I guess.” 

“The fuck? Did you hear nothing I just said?”

“I did, you’ve done your duty. I release you from whatever residual guilt drove you to make this gonked fucking journey. I’m too fuckin’ tired to yell at you anymore. Just go.” V would walk to the door and throw it open to punctuate her remarks but she’s pretty sure if she moves, she’ll collapse. His stare is burning into her, but she cannot bring herself to look at him.

“You’re serious.” She says nothing, keeping her eyes fixed on the poster of _Lizzy Wizzy_ on her far wall. “After all this bullshit, you’re gonna be like this.” She will not take the bait. She will _not_. “I was always gonna come home, V.”

“Should have thought of that, Silverhand, before you ghosted me for nine fucking weeks.”

“I told you to trust me.” Unfortunately, she is a far cry from the woman she wants to be, and this is what gets her in the end. V looks over at him, finally. How many times did she study that face, if only to understand what it wasn’t saying out loud? His attempts at bravado, the detached, amused look he walked in with are long gone. Fuck, she knows him so well and that makes it so much harder. The storm of her emotions threatens to pull her apart. Somewhere buried in her chest, that sharp something twitches for the first time in weeks. Johnny stands and fills the space between them, and she lies to herself that she doesn’t have the strength to move away. His chrome fingers twitch but he’s smart enough not to touch her.

“This is far beyond trust, asshole. I thought you were dead, that you had just left me, lied to me, tricked me into believing some stupid fairy tale bullshit. I’m not some soft hearted child, Johnny. Nor do I possess some wild notion about the person you are, the people _we are_ when we’re together.” She pauses, wills herself not to cry. “I just can’t fuckin’ believe you left me.” The floodgates open and she sobs. He doesn’t hesitate this time and arms she thought for sure she would never feel again wrap themselves around her and he pulls her to him. She buries her face in his chest, realizing for the very first time that he doesn’t smell like her at all, he smells like home. It just makes her cry harder. 

Johnny lifts her and carries them both to her couch, where he sits, allowing her to curl up into his lap. She knows she should be furious, shoving him off, screaming at him for abandoning her, but Jesus Christ she missed him so much and she is so tired of fighting. For a long time there is nothing but her soft sobs and the sound of his metal fingers running up and down the fabric of her back. In the distance, her phone rings. It’s Vik, she’s sure of it. V lets it ring. 

Johnny’s voice rumbles beneath her, as she struggles to get a hold of herself. “Wasn’t sure I was gonna find an answer. Couldn’t just come home empty handed. Would have made it all—”

“That wasn’t your call to make, Johnny.” 

“I know,” He pauses. “But I still made it.”

“You were afraid.” It’s a statement, not a question. They both know it was never about him coming back with nothing to show for it. For a while he stays silent, and she eventually sits up, wiping the rapidly drying tears from her face in an attempt to regain a modicum of composure. 

“I…yeah. Yeah, I was.” Were she not in pieces, this moment of vulnerability would leave her proud.

“Really fucked up way to do this, you know that right?” He meets her gaze, and she wants nothing more than to reach across the divide between them. She doesn’t. 

“S’only way I know how.” And here she was, thinking she’d made an impact. V goes to stand up, but he holds her in place.

“V…” Fuck he makes her so weak. 

“I missed you, asshole. I missed you so much.”

“I know. I’m so fuck—"

Suddenly, her body heaves, stomach and lungs filling with blood, and she is out of his lap, sprinting to the bathroom. Crimson mixes with bile as she vomits into the toilet. Dying is so fucking inconvenient.

As her body finishes purging it’s latest round of liquified _essence de V_ , she instinctively curls up into a ball on her tiled floor. She trembles so hard the bones of her knees rattle against the ground. Johnny appears before her and scoops her up into his arms without a word. She’s sure he’s going to put her to bed, but instead he makes his way for the door.

“Johnny, what—”

“You’re dying, V. Every other fuckin’ thing can wait. This takes precedence.”

“How are—”

“Kerry’s outside.”

“You called Kerry first?!” She tries not to squirm, it hurts so badly to move, but she makes a valiant effort at sounding outraged. 

“How’d you think I got here?” As a groom would a bride, he carries her through her building to the landing pad on the roof. People stare, and she wonders what is more intriguing: the dead legend come back to life, or the mostly dead girl in his arms? Probably the former. 

The sun is overwhelmingly bright as they step into it, and she buries her face in his chest once more. Johnny’s wearing their jacket. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him in it and, were she not dying and heartbroken, that would probably mean something. Kerry leans casually against the door of his car, opulent and aloof as ever in the sunlight. He pales considerably at her condition.

“Fuck, Johnny, what’d you do to her!?”

“Move. We gotta delta.”

“I swear to god, if you did something—”

“Ker, honestly, drop this bodyguard bullshit. Drive.”

V lets the darkness pressing at her edges take control, too tired to fight it any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ gosh-emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter
> 
> Just two chapters left, maybe it will even be less sad <3


	9. nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> This is extremely long, but it's the climax of the story (in more ways than one ;p) and couldn't be separated. This chapter was a monster to write, edit, re-write, and edit once more. I hope you guys like it.  
> I've updated the tags to reflect the certain flavors of smut that are found in this chapter. 
> 
> Endless gratitude to everyone who comments and leaves kudos. You guys are amazing.  
> A Massive thank you to Viper (@absurdiist) and Em (@calamaris) for listening to me bitch about this for the last week. 
> 
> We're almost done, babes.  
> Enjoy <3

So it turns out that, shockingly, cloning is not some simple one to one procedure. Dr. Brown and Dr. Wilkinson are very nice corpo shills, all considered, but they fight Vik tooth and nail over how to do what needs to be done. They insist V cannot be cloned in his “back alley, pathetic excuse of a clinic”. It takes time, apparently, to grow a human body. Less time, thankfully, since no personality needs to be developed, but a month at least. They need access to more than what Vik has or could ever afford. It’s here that Kerry gets to shine.

“No.”

“Fuck you, ‘no’. If it makes you so uncomfortable, think of it as an investment.”

“Investment in what? Your chrome is nicer than anything I’ve ever put together.” Vik and Kerry are going back and forth over it while V struggles to stay awake on the old couch the ripperdoc keeps in his clinic. Johnny paces, chain smoking, between all of them. 

“Investment in V, obviously.” Everyone turns to look at her, but she is so tired and deeply out of her element that all she can do is blink. 

“The fuck for? She gonna take up the role of your bodyguard?” Johnny sounds surprisingly upset at the suggestion. V is too weak to fight the soft way it makes her feel.

“Because she is my friend you unbelievably dense asshole? Or did your stint in digital hell fry your fuckin’ circuits so—” 

“Fine, if only to stop this bullshit from happening. What do you need?” Vik concedes, turning his attention to the doctors. The two Biotechnica gonks rattle off a bunch of jargon she does not care to understand, and sleep pulls at her edges. They’ve been at the ripperdoc’s for the better part of two hours and all everyone else has done is argue. Panam made herself scarce, for reasons V does not want to pull apart, and Misty is busy with a client. Johnny won’t make eye contact with her and she wonders what it is they are becoming, now that everything is different.

“There is also the matter of the relic.” Both her and her former ghost zero in on the conversation. Old habits die ever so hard. Wilkinson looks uncomfortable in a way that you never want your doctor to look. 

“What about it?” Johnny sounds so angry now, like when they first met. Nine weeks without her and he’s almost a stranger, again. 

“Your engram may be gone, but the relic is still there, degrading into her brain. It’s why she is dying, as I’m sure you know. In order to get the ‘her’ out of the body that we want, her consciousness has to be separated, and the best way to do that is by using the relic.”

“The one you just said is degrading.” Kerry sounds as annoyed as she feels.

“Right, so the quicker we get her onto it the better.”

“Please don’t talk about me like I’m not fuckin’ here.” She stands up, the world spins, and Johnny automatically reaches out to steady her. His silvered hand is like ice, colder than her brain could have ever emulated. “Put me on the relic, toss this meat, and let the clone cook.”

“We run the risk of—”

“I am fucking _dying_ here. Right now, at this very fuckin’ moment. My life is over, risk is nothing to me. Do it, I’m sick of pukin’ up blood.” V shakes off Johnny’s touch and stalks out of the room, needing fresh air. The last few hours of her life have been so wildly different from the last nine weeks she is struggling to put it all back together. Outside, amongst the trash and debris, Panam sits leaning against the wall. Her friend looks at her, wrinkles her brow, and looks away. They’ve yet to speak since her return six weeks ago. Suddenly the weight of that stupidity hits V and in its wake, there is a terrible shame.

“Hey.” V settles beside Panam and stares into the middle distance. Again, there is silence between them, underscored by the noise of the city. Eventually, V just starts talking. “Didn’t find out I was still gonna flatline until after Johnny got us both into Mikoshi. Alt just said it, like it was as inconsequential as a dinner order. Just couldn’t believe it. All this work, all these moments and losses and relationships and it was pointless. Fuck, _ Johnny Silverhand _ , of all people to grace this shit earth, had agreed to  _ die _ for me and it all meant nothing. Takemura, Evelyn, Rogue, fucking Jackie, they had all died for nothing.” Panam’s hand finds V’s and grips it tightly.

“I can’t imagine.” 

“And then I realized that at least I could give Johnny a second chance. He’d earned it, done right by me. Fuck he saved my life more times than I could count. At least then, one good thing would come from my sacrifice, my death. ‘Cept he didn’t even need it. Apparently Arasaka’d kept his meat on ice, for who the fuck knows what reason. So, truly, I had accomplished nothing that would justify all the pain it took me to get there.”

“So why’d you come back?”

“Because I decided that I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to spend some time in the Badlands, with you and the Aldecaldos. Wanted to take that swim with Judy, hang out with River and his family once more. I helped Kerry get that tour contract and I wanted to see him shine, like he’s meant too. Needed to thank Vik and Misty for holding me together, for bein’ the ones to patch me up again and again.” V sighs and Panam squeezes her hand tight. “Because I loved him, and I thought that I’d earned the chance to enjoy that, even if it was on borrowed time. I’d fought so hard for this life and I realized that if I was gonna flatline no matter what, least it woulda been amongst my family.” She’s crying, again. The only thing her body is still good for is aching.

“Only now,” Panam pauses, looking over at her. V looks back, noticing that wretched optimism always shining in the nomad’s eyes. “You’ve got a second chance.” V knows her friend expects her to break into a smile, rejoice at this gift she’s been given. Instead, she sucks in another ragged breath and wipes away her tears.

“There was never any way that, once separated, I was gonna know how to function without Johnny, at least not in the state I was comin’ back in. If my impendin’ doom wasn’t a factor, maybe, but it would have taken time.” V hates admitting this out loud. Letting people matter to her was difficult enough but letting someone earn such a vital place in her life, in her heart, was downright terrifying. The relic’s consistent degrading, the melding of him into her, it left her irreparably altered and it was far beyond the usual ways one person changes another. So disappointing, really, this loss of her autonomy. What would her Aunt think? What would Jackie?

“Never wanted to just rot to death, but I was willin’ to for a chance at happiness and he fuckin’ ruined that. Had he said anything to me these last nine weeks, I’d have probably been okay. Still didn’t want to die without him here, but well, at least he was doing something good. Cementing my belief that he’s a better man now than he once was. Instead, he did the one thing he knew would hurt, he abandoned me without a word. Gone as abruptly as everyone else. Fucked me up, Panam.” V looks away, chewing on her lip.

“I didn’t want you goin’ after him, V. He makes you stupid, reckless. Fuck, look at you right now. You’re shakin’ so bad,  _ I’m _ cold.” Panam reaches out, places her hand on V’s cheek. “You’re in no state to take off into the sunset, gun’s blazin’. I’d rather you hate me, and not die trying to save some asshole input, than any other alternative.” She hates how right her friend is, about how much of a blind spot Johnny has become for her. 

“I’m so sorry, Panam.” V apologizes, sounding as earnest as she possibly can. “Dying makes you a desperate person, even when you know it’s inescapable. S’hard to just flip that switch, feel that cold wave of relief. I get a second chance, but fuck if my first go around hasn’t taken a toll. Just need time, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got heaps of it now. Offer still stands, ya know. Always have a space with the family, always have a home. You can leave this all behind, say fuck you to Night City, start over.” The thought is tempting, more so now than when Panam originally offered it. Still, could she leave the last year of her life behind? Start over, under a different sky? What would she do about him? 

As if on cue, Johnny ascends the steps from Vik’s clinic, settling his gaze on her. There is a pull, magnetic and relentless, between them. She’s not sure they’ll ever know what it feels like not to be tethered.

“Right, well I have to call Mitch and tell him…. something I’m sure.” Panam gives her a reassuring smile and pulls her into a hug. Her body is so warm and firm, and she smells like long nights beneath bright stars, the way the wind feels when it blows through your hair. For the first time since she’s found out, V is so fucking happy she’s not dying. Panam lets her go and takes her leave, vanishing through the door to Misty’s Esoterica. V keeps her focus forward, not looking at him as he makes his final approach. A canyon of things unsaid lingers between them.

“Doc says they gotta get shit brought here from elsewhere. Should be ready tomorrow sometime, I don’t know. Kerry said he’d handle it.”

“Right.”

“They say you won’t notice any time passin’, when you’re on the relic. Through personal experience, they’re basically right. About a month, or so, for us, but more or less instant for you. Like a long, shitty sleep.”

“Mhm.”

Another awkward silence and she feels the creep of an attack moving slowly up her spine. Thankfully, the pills Vik slipped her when they first arrived are holding it at bay. She’s been through more today than she has in two months and it’s like her body knows the end is soon. 

“Alright no. We’re not doin this, V.” He shakes his head and pulls the sunglasses from his face.

“Doin’ what, Silverhand?”

“This,” and he gestures to the space between them. “It’s not fun. It’s not cute.”

“Oh I was unaware it was supposed to be. Must have missed the fuckin’ memo.”

“Stop it. You’ve never had a problem bein’ mad at me before, don’t start pussyfootin’ around that shit now. You wanna yell at me some more? Do it. Do whatever you fuckin’ need to, to get this shit outta your system.” Wasn’t it seconds ago that Panam was there, thawing her out? Is this the person she so desperately clings to, in her time of need? Is this who he is, now?

“Oh I’m  _ so sorry _ that my feelings are so fuckin’ inconvenient for you, dear precious fuckin’ heart. Jesus fuckin’ forbid someone be upset with the beloved and irresistible Johnny Silverhand.” 

“There ya go, kid.”

“Stop fuckin’  _ callin me that _ .” She shoves him, because she can, because no matter what her body wants to be connected to his. He doesn’t even move. “I can’t just act like nothin’ fuckin’ happened, Johnny. You think because you come swoopin’ in with your goddamn miracle cure, and some stupid, bullshit excuse as to why you didn’t bother to contact me for nine fuckin’ weeks, that everything is just fine now? I grieved for you, you asshole. You have no god damn idea—" 

“I told you to trust—”

“Fuck you and your fucking _ trust _ , okay? If anyone is pussyfootin’ around shit, it’s you. You were so scared to face this thing between us you  _ ran away _ . You ran away and left me, dyin’ and alone, in your absence. I harbor no illusions on the man you are, Johnny. The fact that you couldn’t trust me enough to realize that, is what hurts the fuckin’ most.” Maybe it’s because she’s no longer on the brink of death. Maybe it’s because she’s furious and hurt and heartbroken. Whatever the reason, V steps to the edge of the ever-present precipice; that cavern inside her that he occupies, the space where she keeps him, pressed sharply against the edges of her heart, and leaps. “Fuck,  _ I love you _ , okay?” The ragged edges of her voice crack. “There! I said it out loud. Congrats, you’ve officially entangled yourself with another fuckin’ human. So either do something about that or stop wasting my fuckin’ time.” V goes to push past him, and he holds her in place. His face is a mess of emotion, written in a language she could have sworn she was fluent in.

Tense moments pass between them and she watches him struggle to speak. V scoffs. 

“ _ Say it _ , Silverhand. Say it or let me fuckin’  _ go _ .” This is how Alt felt, how Rogue and Kerry felt, how every person who has ever made the mistake of loving him has ever felt and it burns in a way she’s never anticipated. Did the ten months they spent collapsing into one another mean nothing; had he not grown beyond that empty husk of anger and fear? Did she teach him nothing of intimacy and the value of vulnerability? What she wouldn’t give to reach across the divide and grasp onto what it is he is feeling. The tether that once bound them together leaves an echo of nothing in its absence. Time slows to almost stopping and she cannot believe he isn’t gonna say—

“I love you.” Surprise, mixed with relief, fills her to the point of bursting. “Fuck, V. I’ve loved you for so long now, can’t remember what it feels like to not.” He looks away, his acknowledgment shocking him as much as it did her. She trembles, her hands ache to reach for him but she stays the course. 

“Then why the fuck did you do this? Why go and fuck everything up? You could have just told me, Silverhand, could have just called.”

“’Cause I’m still me. ‘M still everything I was before this, before you.” He glances at her before staring off once more. “Truth is, I fuck everything up. It’s my nature.”

“Oh  _ bullshit _ , Silverhand.” He almost flinches. “I know you. Why do you insist on forgetting that? Said so yourself, that night at your—” V stops for a moment. It’s not really his grave, it never was. Perhaps what they memorialized that night was just the version of him he wanted left behind. “Fuck. Are you really gonna stand there and act like it didn’t matter, like you really escaped this shit totally unchanged? Jesus fucking Christ, Johnny, how many ways do I need to say this? I’ve seen the man you’ve become; I know who you used to be. Felt every bit of regret and despair that you tried to push away. You were livin’ inside me, where did you think it was gonna go?”

“First chance I had to really do somethin’, and I fucked it up, V.”

“Yeah, you did.” V sighs. “Just like you fucked up when you took my body. It’s like you’re punishin’ me, punishin’ yourself, for shit that isn’t optional. Why does everything gotta hurt so bad the first time around with you? Didn’t you learn a goddamn thing?”

“I’m not somethin’ to be fixed, darlin’. Can’t teach me shit, not when I didn’t ask for it.” Of course he’s difficult, even now, after his confession.

“That’s the only time you learn, Silverhand, when you’ve got no other choice, when you’re fuckin’ forced to do it. Lie to yourself all you want, but stop thinkin’ you can lie to me. Know you too well for that, now.” Another lapse into silence. She doesn’t need to be tethered to him to see how his hand shakes, how desperately he wishes to reach out. Hers is the same. This gulf between them, it’s so much harder to cross without the benefit of knowing what the other is feeling. They’ve never had to do this before, never had to come to an understanding as two separate, but not quite whole, people.

“Honestly babe, I don’t know what to  _ do _ with you.” Has anyone ever seen him laid so bare before them? Is this what devotion does to a person like him? Does it cling too heavy to his body, hold him down? Perhaps he doesn’t want to love her, the burden of it far too much to carry. Perhaps that’s really why he left.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“‘M not about to weigh you down with my shit again, not when you’re finally free of it.”

“Again, that’s not your fuckin’ call to make. You said yourself once that what I want never matters to me. Well, this is what I want. You are—”

“Left you, didn’t I? Broke your heart. What makes you think that’s not how it's always gonna be?” He just wants her to yell at him, push him away. If it pains her to be vulnerable, it nearly kills him.

“What do you  _ want _ , Johnny?” It’s not what he was expecting, and he steps away. Everything about him reeks of nervous energy and he paces before her. 

“This is fuckin—”

“Johnny god damn it—”

“ _ You _ , V. You know that. Shit, spent the last nine weeks practically sellin’ my brand new soul to a corporation, just to keep you alive. Made you a promise, had to keep it no matter the cost.” 

“That promise came to mean a whole lot more than just salvation, Silverhand. Look at me. Look me in the eyes and tell me you want this to be it. You can consider it fulfilled in total, and your duty done.” She steps into his pathway, blocking him. Johnny fidgets, but holds her gaze. “I came back to die by your side, among the people I love. Only, now I’m not dyin’ anymore. The fates have been ludicrously kind, and we’ve been gifted something most people dream of. Your second chance is yours, just as mine is mine. M’not gonna make you do shit. You can love me all you want, but that’s only half this equation. Not gonna pretend I’m not hurt, not frankly heartbroken at your selfish actions. Like always, you were stallin’ for time, only this time around, it wasn’t yours you were wastin’. But I’m willin’ to work through that shit, together. So tell me you want this to end here, and we’ll end it. M’not askin’ you for a ten year life plan, just wanna know if you want to come home with me tonight, or not. If you wanna be there when I wake up in a month, strugglin’ to adjust to new skin.” Her voice cracks. “Tell me if I should let you go.”

Johnny’s hand, warm and organic, comes up to trace softly across her cheek. She can’t help but lean into it, into him. For a heartbeat she thinks he might say yes, might cut her loose to the unknown, but then he lets out a breath they are both holding, and dips his head slightly. “Don’t.” 

Finally,  _ finally _ , she allows herself to kiss him. In many ways, it’s their first and that fills her with warmth in a way she had forgotten was possible. Her fingers grasp tightly to the fabric of his shirt as his snake through her hair, both of them pressing roughly into one another, chasing the closeness they’ve both spent so long without. Weeks, months, lifetimes they have hungered for one another, completely unable to act effectively on the feeling. Her body sings for him, coming to life in a way it hasn’t since he left. His mouth is pliant and warm; endlessly inviting of her efforts to devour him. V stands up, rising to the balls of her feet, in an effort to somehow feel more of him. Johnny hooks his hands around her thighs, hoisting her higher, and she wraps her legs tightly around his waist. That beastly feeling of possessiveness rolls through her and she bites harshly on his lip. Nothing about them is gentle, but it’s never been, and she wouldn’t want it any other way. He pins her to the wall, ravenous in his pursuit of her. 

“Missed you so fuckin’ badly, babe,” he pants into her mouth, trailing his lips down her jawline to her neck. Johnny is terrible at words, normally opting to act rather than speak, but his confession makes her heart skip. “No idea how long,” he pauses, biting at her ear. “I’ve wanted you. Nearly killed me, stayin’ away.” 

“I thought you’d--”

“Never.” Johnny pulls back to face her, the both of them heaving, red with desire. “I’m sorry, V. Should’ve never forced you to feel that way, to think you didn’t matter.” His chrome fingers trace delicately across her cheek, along the line of her mouth and his brown eyes burn into hers. “There is nothin’ in this world, or any other, more important to me than you.” V’s throat contracts, tears welling up, as she tries and fails to choke back a sob. Johnny presses his forehead to hers

“I wanna go home,” she whispers. “Come with me.”

His grin is the sun.

* * *

It’s her last night in her body. Tomorrow morning, she’ll let Kerry drive them to Vik’s and his expensive new equipment where they will store everything she has ever been, the total of the person that is V, onto a relic that has literally destroyed and rebuilt her life. She will no longer exist within the confines of her originally designated skin and it makes her sad in a kind of way she didn’t expect. V has spent so long trying to cope with the fact that her body is actively trying to kill her that she never stops to consider what it will be like when she lets it go. Even though he technically can’t, she thinks Johnny feels this loss, understands deeply what it is she is about to leave behind. Perhaps this is what motivates him as he endeavors to devour her.

Beyond this one evening they will fuck one another into stupidity again and again she is sure, but never in the flesh they both have come to know so well. It’s both a first and a last time and it's far more emotional than either of them anticipated. She is still hurt, still furious at his selfish decisions, but she is also still dying and until V feels securely fastened into the stability of her new meat, she will wait to fight with him a little longer. Instead, she will take tonight and these moments with him, and revel in the way he makes her body sing. 

They waste no time, having lost enough as is. A quick goodbye to Misty as he practically drags her out of the shop and then they are gone. She is eternally grateful for the existence of Delamain and his autonomous ability to get them home. They spend the car ride entwined, her grinding into his lap with every heartbeat, relishing the way he swears into each kiss. Again she almost lets him fuck her against the side of her apartment building, but people are starting to notice and while a little exhibition never hurt, she wants the first time he cums inside her to be something to which only she may bear witness. 

The liminal experience of an elevator ride always reminds her of him and his propensity for chattering during them. From now on though, whenever she thinks of one, it will be the feeling of his cold, metal fingers slipping beneath the top of her panties that echoes through her. The fact that none of their clothing officially comes off until they are locked away in the quiet sanctuary of their home is a miracle all on its own. V prays to whatever the fuck is left out there listening that her body willingly does this one last thing for her. 

Johnny crowds her, pressing her to the wall besides her front door. “Fuck, V. This is—”

“S’much fuckin’ better in the flesh, I know.” In lieu of a response he just draws the shirt up from over her breasts and pulls one taught nipple between his teeth. She hisses in response, sliding down the wall a little and bringing the Lizzy Wizzy poster down with her. He is particularly unforgiving when it comes to the way he handles her, and she loves it. The manner with which he fucked her the night before storming Arasaka pales in comparison with just the way he groans when she tugs harshly on his raven black hair. Nothing has ever, ever felt so perfect. 

“Off.” She tugs his shirt up over his shoulders and it is lost somewhere behind him. Hers follows suit and, as he picks her up, the feel of her bare breasts against his warm chest is intoxicating. They attempt to move towards the bed, but it proves exceedingly difficult. His mouth is everywhere, teeth dragging themselves across her soft skin. If this is the last night in her body, they’re working overtime to ensure they send it off with a bang. Pinning her once more, this time to the frame of her bed, she arches her back in response to the bulge of his cock pressing into her, through their pants. Desire dictates her every move, and she forces herself out of his grip and onto the floor before him. 

Kneeling, she looks up and meets his gaze. As he stands, silhouetted in the cold neon of the night, V is 100% sure there is nothing, not one single thing on this Earth or any other, that she wants more in that moment than to choke on the impressiveness of his cock. No tether is needed for him to read her mind and he reaches down to caress the side of her face softly before gripping her chin, metal fingers digging into skin.

“Fuck, if you don’t look perfect on your knees. You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to watch you beg.” She tilts her head just so, taking one of his digits between her lips and makes a show of running her tongue along it. He groans and it nearly breaks her. “Let’s see how filthy a fuckin’ whore you are. Open up, princess.” Before she can even register the command, her body complies—like it always does for him—and he spits into her waiting mouth. The suddenness of it, the complete degradation, sends a spike of want through her and she’s never been so fucking wet in her life. He runs his finger over her lips as he forces her mouth close. “Swallow, kitten. Used to share this body, and the only person that belongs inside you is me.” He watches the motion of her throat as she obeys with a look so hungry it makes her moan. V has his pants undone and his cock in her mouth within the next heartbeat.

It's interesting, she thinks in that distant kind of way, how surprisingly accurate he kept himself when she held the digital construct of him in her hands. Impressive, indeed. Her mouth barely fits around him, and he wastes no time weaving his fingers through her hair and pulling it just earnestly enough to sting. 

“Oh what a good girl you are.” He purrs and she moans over the thickness of his cock as chrome fingers tug hard at her nipple. The hand in her hair shoves her forward, forcing her to gag on him, a reaction which has him pulling harder at her breast as he keens. He face-fucks her for a few moments and she relishes in the wet, lewd sound it makes. V reaches up and runs her nails down the skin of his back, sinking into the flesh above the seam of his pants. He bucks harder and lets out a breathy moan. One more earnest push into the back of her throat and he pulls her off him with a vulgar POP! that echoes through the room. She looks at him through the tears in her eyes and he looks positively feral in the neon glow. Johnny drags her to her feet and presses her back into the wall of her bed frame.

“S’only fair I return the favor, kitten.” He practically rips the jeans from her body and kneels before her, licking his lips in anticipation. “Fuck,” is all he manages before he leans in. V presses her foot into his shoulder, holding him in place.

“I’m not the only one beggin’ tonight here, Silverhand.”

“S’not really—”

“Beg.” He shuts his mouth and glares at her. The satisfaction it brings her is decadent. “Be a good little boy and beg.” They stare at one another, stubbornness just another trait they have come to share. V leans forward, forcing him to hold her weight, as she brings her face close to his. “You abandoned me for nine weeks, Johnny. Beg me to let you bury that pretty little face into my cunt and let’s see if I can be persuaded to forgive you.”

“Please.”

“Please,  _ what _ ?”

“Please let me eat your pussy like it’s the only thing left for me to do.”

“Good enough,” and she releases him, slipping her leg up over his shoulder. Johnny wastes no time, slipping his tongue into her a moment, just to taste, before exploring her cunt with earnest. He sucks her clit into his mouth and applies just enough pressure to hurt, her back arching in response almost immediately. “Fuck, Johnny.” He lets out a breathy laugh, the heat of it polarizing to the cold of the air on her wet cunt. 

His eponymous fingers press into her, two and then three at a time. Her body tenses as she stretches over the pressure of the intrusion and he tongues the sensitive bud at the top of her cunt. She knew he’d be good but it’s like he was made specifically for her. In a way he kind of was. With one hand busy fingering her, he uses his other to grip the skin of her ass and pull, stretching her open even more. She rocks forward into him, both of her hands threading into his hair and pulling. They moan in tandem, the timbre of his voice literally vibrating through her. 

The dream she had of this, all those months and lifetimes ago, pales in comparison to the pleasure he is teasing from her. He pumps his fingers in and out of her faster and alternates between tonguing and sucking on her clit. It has been ages since she’s come and the pit of desire inside her rises to swallow her whole. 

“Johnny, I’m close—I need—please—” The words tumble out of her, incoherent and half formed, as she rocks herself up and down into his face. He just pushes onward, keeping a brutal and steady pace. For a moment she considers waiting, edging herself until she can feel his cock sink into her but then the metal pad of his finger brushes that small, sensitive space inside her cunt and she explodes. 

His name, like a prayer, like a scream, bursts from her as she tugs violently at his hair and cums, quaking, into his mouth. Her body, this body, has never, and will never again, know pleasure so pure. Her eyes open into slits and Johnny looks up at her from the apex of her thighs, his face dripping and flushed, that smug grin plastered across his mouth. She’s never seen anything half as erotic as him in that moment. He kisses her tender cunt, sending a spike of overstimulation up her spine before standing up and facing her once more. His tongue forces its way past her lips and the taste of her on him is enough to make her whine. He pulls her bottom lip harshly with his teeth before pulling away, leaving a hint of blood mixed with her cum behind.

“Best pussy I ever ate.” 

“I thought—” and then his hand is wrapped around her neck. His metal fingers are ice against the flushed heat of her skin, and she squirms, totally unaware how desperately she wanted this exact thing. He always did have a habit of knowing her better than she knew herself. 

“Shut up.” He nips painfully at her jawline and crushes her throat slightly beneath his grasp. “Think you’re so cute, so fuckin’ funny, kitten. Make no mistake. Just because I begged for your cunt doesn’t mean you won’t be pleading for me again before this is over.” He squeezes her throat once more and let’s go, shoving her onto the bed. Their chests heave in tandem, their hearts beating in sync across the space of their two bodies. Forever, now, will they know how to function as one. 

He slips out of his jeans, and they are bare before one another, glowing in the pink lights of the city. His cock is hard and beaded with precum as he jerks it lazily with his organic hand. “On your knees, wanna see you spread before me.” For a moment, V considers being a brat but honestly she is so desperate to get fucking railed by him, she just complies. There will be time enough later for that. Despite the ten months he crawled beneath her skin, regardless of the countless times he saw her naked, there is something exceedingly vulnerable in being displayed before him like she is. She’s grateful he can’t read her thoughts in that moment, if only because the self-consciousness of her feelings would piss him off. The fact that she can’t see him is terrifying in the most arousing sense of the word.

“Absolutely fuckin’ preem. Look at how wet and tight you are, kitten. You’re so fuckin’ desperate for me to fuck you I can smell it.” A warm finger drags itself up the length of her cunt before pushing into her slightly. She keens and rocks back into it. Any lingering sensitivity of her orgasm has faded by the sheer desire and ache she has for him to plunge himself into her. She’s spent the last nine weeks thinking she would die without ever knowing just how perfect they really fit together. 

“’M not a cruel man. No need to keep a good whore waiting.” And his cock slides into her, filling her in a way she has, up until this point, never truly been. They both groan, his low and hers high, as he sinks into the wet heat of her cunt. For a moment, just a heartbeat, they relish it. Finally. Almost a whole year spent squirming in the same flesh and finally, f _ inally _ , they know what it feels like to cross this final threshold. Were she not so totally consumed by pleasure she might cry at the poetry of it all. After all, it was him who taught her what it meant. Another moan and he begins a torturous rhythm of plunging in and out of her. 

“Johnny,” she moans into the dark and his metal hand comes up to grab her hair. He pulls it roughly, her back arching in response and holds tight while he fucks her. “Please,” she begs and, because once tethered to someone as they were it is oh so hard to unlearn them, he lets her hair go to wrap his fingers around her throat and squeeze. The edges of her vision blur and go dark and she struggles for breath. As she chokes, he thrust into her harder. 

“Cannot fuckin’ believe.” He doesn’t even finish his sentence, so caught up in the act of fucking her. V rocks back into him and their rhythm is perfect; just like the night before Arasaka, just like in every dream. They are capable of nothing other than this. He uses his other hand to rub circles across her clit and she inadvertently clenches around him. “Christ.” And the grip on her neck tightens. His hold on her is expertly balanced, squeezing her harshly, but carefully enough not to strangle. Not that she would ever worry, she trusts him completely. There is never a moment she feels safer than whenever he is near, especially as he tries to break her beneath him. 

“Fuck, I—” She is so close she can taste it. So, naturally, he pulls out. “Why—”

“No.” He drops beside her on the bed and pulls her on top of him, gripping her ass to keep her just out of reach of his cock. V squirms, seeking him out in the dark but his hold on her is firm. Instead, he slides her cunt just over the head of his cock, teasing an animal whine of want out of her. “Not sure you deserve it. After all, you let a pig fuck you.” She narrows her eyes at him, and he sneers. “Poor kitten, so desperate to be wanted you just opened your legs to the first dick that asked.” Johnny’s rhythmic motion of sliding her back and forth halts a moment and she pushes down to try and sink herself back onto him, to no avail. “’Sides, haven’t you learned?” He pauses, clearly waiting for her response.

“What?” She barely even recognizes the sound of her own voice; it is so drenched in desperation. 

“You’ve belonged to me since day fuckin’ one.” He growls and her body shivers in response. “Every inch of you is mine and how dare you think you could just fuck someone else? Beg, bitch. Earn your place on my cock.” His words degrade her totally and the insulted, humiliated way it makes her feel rolls through her like a storm of desire. 

“P-please,” she whines.

“Please what, kitten?” He purrs

“ _ Please fuck me _ .” The smile he gives her is predatory, dangerous and without a word, he slams himself back into her. His hands on her hips set a brutal pace as she rides him, the two of them seeking the same release. They don’t need to share the same flesh to know the end is close. Johnny sits up, wrapping his arms around her to press their chests together. Their bodies are slick with sweat and they moan in unison, his cock finding that small spot deep within her, hitting it just right. “Johnny, I--”

“Cum for me, babe. Wanna feel your cunt--” She cuts him off, sobbing out a scream, as he pushes her over that precipice once more. V sinks her nails into the skin of his shoulders, arching her back to ride out her orgasm, and shuddering as his cock plunges in and out of her. Her release is the breaking point for him and he starts thrusting erratically, pulling her back to him. Johnny buries his face into her neck and V feels the jolt of him inside her as he hits his peak, spilling his cum messily into her cunt. “Love you. Love you. Love you.” he repeats, holding her so tight she almost can’t breathe. 

Gradually, they come back down to earth together. The two of them are breathless as they pull apart, slowly detangling the mess of their limbs. Johnny presses their foreheads together, as they both gasp for air. 

“Need to clean up.” The words are stunted, V struggling to center herself. 

“Me too.” He rasps. Before she can protest, Johnny picks her up once more, and carries her to the bathroom. He makes quick work of the shower, getting the water to that near boiling temperature she loves. V leans into the cool tiled wall, body languorous with satisfaction, and watches him move. It’s surreal, that he is here, in the flesh and blood, body bruised and marked beneath the efforts of her desire. For the first time in nine weeks, that sharp something wrapped around her heart twists so strongly, she shudders. V moves, slipping her arms around his waist, and presses a soft kiss into the space between his shoulder blades, whispering her secrets into the waiting skin.

* * *

“I’m sorry, V. Truly.”

“I know.”

She reaches for him in the dark of their bed, and he wraps himself around her. The dichotomy of his cold metal arm with his warm flesh one strikes a perfect balance for her. Her head finally cleared of the haze of desire he smothers her with, worry begins to eat at her edges.

“What if I don’t—”

“We aren’t doin’ that, babe.”

“Okay but we are because I want—”

“No.”

“Johnny, something could go wrong you heard the corpo shills. And I just want to make sure that you know—”

“If you try and say goodbye to me I’m shovin’ you outta this bed, V. Go to sleep. I’m not entertainin’ this.”

“I need to make sure—” He covers her mouth in his, drowning out any further concerns she attempts to voice. She should be upset but honestly perhaps this is the only goodbye he’d need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ gosh-emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter
> 
> Final chapter next week <3


	10. ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> And so we come to the end.  
> I cannot believe I wrote, published, and finished a whole fanfic. It is my baby tbh.  
> Thank you to everyone who commented and left feedback throughout this journey, you guys are literally so sweet I cannot take it. Massive gratitude to my Mod Squad, y'all are like the reason this fic came together the way it did.
> 
> Enjoy <3

“Please don’t die doin’ somethin’ gonk as fuck while I’m gone, Silverhand.”

Johnny laughs and she feels like crying. Yesterday it was easy to commit to this month-long hibernation because yesterday she didn’t possess the knowledge of what it would feel like to fall asleep tangled up in him. She had no way of knowing the comfort the weight of his body crushing hers would bring. Yesterday, they were miles away and worlds apart and now it's like he never left. Tenderness and affection aren’t things either of them excel at, but his fingers find hers where they lay beneath the sheet Vik has covered her in all the same. 

“What will happen to this body?” V is surprised at the emotion she has to work to keep out of her voice. Her friends love her enough to pretend to be convinced. 

“Gotta get the cybernetics out so they can be prepped for your new one but, uh, suppose after that it’s up to you. What do you want to happen to it?” Vik wheels up beside her on his stool and peers at her from over his glasses. She glances at Johnny out of habit, forever seeking his opinion on matters that rarely concern him. Her former ghost just shrugs noncommittally. 

“I don’t know.”

“I could bury you besides Jackie, in the Columbarium. I know you won’t really be dead, but I think he would like the company, all the same.” Misty says it so casually, whereas V struggles not to sob. That familiar sense of loss, that permanent ache her partner’s death has left inside her heart, is overwhelming in that moment and she takes a few shuddering breaths before nodding meekly. It looks like she’ll wring one last cry out of this meat after all. 

“It’s settled, then.” Misty smiles at her. V wonders what she should say, if she should attempt a proper goodbye. Johnny just shakes his head softly, forever in tune to the trajectory of her thoughts. 

“See you all in a month, I guess.” V forces herself to sound stronger than she feels. That little bit of fear from the night before has blossomed into something massive and it’s hard to feign confidence.

Despite the crowd, Johnny presses his lips to the side of her head, and whispers into her ear: “Sleep well, my princess.” With a nod to her, Vik injects the sleeping agent, and the last thing V sees before she drifts off is her former ghost, winking at her. Her body goes then, a smile on its lips. 

* * *

“I’m not letting you do this.”

“I’m fuckin’ tellin’ you she will want it.”

“You got it the first time without her permission.”

“And yet she never got it removed.”

“Don’t care.”

“Doc, c’mon. Look on her face when she wakes up will be worth it alone.”

“Want it so bad, go get it yourself.”

“Already did, asshole.” Vik glares at him before glancing down at his arm. “C’mon.” The ripperdoc lets out a sigh that Johnny is intimately familiar with. He grins. 

“One iota of disgust at this addition from her and I am beating the shit out of you. Don’t think I can’t take you, either. Your whole body is fifty fuckin’ years outta date.”

“Sure, sure. Whatever. Last thing V needs is another fuckin’ bodyguard.”

“Last thing you need is to be forgettin’ she has ‘em in droves.”

“Don’t need the dad lecture.”

“Don’t need the asshole attitude, either, but V wants you around so I’m toleratin’ it. Shut up and call the tattoo artist before I change my fuckin’ mind.”

* * *

“Should we say anything?”

“What would be the point? She ain’t dead.” Just the thought makes him ill and his fingers itch for a cigarette. Johnny abstains purely out of respect for the Columbarium.

“That’s not entirely true. V’s engram, the digitized culmination of her personality, lives on, but this body does not. It mattered to her, and it mattered to you.” Misty is so irritatingly astute that he often wonders why he tortures himself by visiting her. Then again, she is probably one of the only genuine people he’s ever met and that alone warrants their friendship. 

Johnny reaches out, his pale fingers brushing softly against the harsh stone. Their motion disrupts the blue projection, blurring the words. He pulls away and reads them once more, this time aloud. “ _V. Into the Artifice of Eternity._ ” 

“I had no idea she read poetry.”

“She doesn’t.” For no good reason, there is a lump in his throat. Johnny clears his throat, grateful for the foresight of wearing sunglasses. When he set this up, he knew the only person he could stand inviting would be Misty, but now he wonders if that was hurtful, cruel even, to exclude the rest of her little merry band of idiots. Probably.

“They’re together now.” The blonde woman gestures to the niche besides V’s, where her dead choomb Jackie is immortalized. “Partners till the end.” Johnny is surprised to find he harbors no jealousy at such an intimate connection to V. She is the walking amalgamation of everything soft inside him, all of his vulnerabilities made tangible and real. He tries very hard not to think of how dangerous that is for him, and instead focuses on the acceptance he feels at her body being buried alongside her dearest friend.

The wetness in his eyes irritates him and he turns away, done with goodbyes. V isn’t gone, and Johnny is grateful, because he is out of empty spaces to mourn.

* * *

Her new body feels so much like her old one that waking up scares her into thinking something went wrong. Her first few gulps of air into lungs free of blood and decay, however, tell a different story. It takes virtually no time whatsoever for her to acclimate; all her cybernetics work like a dream, and that knot in her neck from oh so long ago is nothing but a distant memory. It took just shy of six weeks for the shills from Biotechnica to grow her new meat in a vat, but it really did pass in what felt like an instant for her. The only indication that life even carried on without her, at first, were the matching bruises on Johnny and Kerry’s faces. She presses, but they refuse to relent.

The small collection of family she has somehow gathered over the last year spend the next few days smothering her in affection she was unaware she needed. What was once a constant companion, her loneliness now feels like something that plagued some other woman, a lifetime, a dying body, and an angry rockerboy ago. Nibbles yells at her for three straight minutes when she finally makes it home and she is endlessly grateful that it was Kerry, not Johnny, who looked after him. The two drama queens take to one another and, ultimately, she gives him the cat to keep. Kerry slips on gilded sunglasses to hide tears of joy. 

Panam and the Aldecaldos’ have them out for dinner and Johnny plays surprisingly nice, despite the overall hatred he carries for pretty much everyone that isn’t her, Misty, or Kerry. Of course, he also fucks her inside the Basilisk the moment they slip away. If she’d let him, he’d have her pretty much anywhere, at any moment. “Makin’ up for lost time, s’all,” is his only excuse. Life carries on, though, and they cannot spend every minute tearing into each other. They make a valiant effort for what it’s worth, all the same. They fall asleep in a tangle of limbs and messy black hair every night.

It’s all so weird in the way that everything about her life is now weird, but she embraces the strangeness of it completely. People, of course, recognize Johnny but he just tells everyone they’re gonked for thinkin’ he’s some long dead 88 year old rockerboy. Virtually no one believes him, but they’re both menacing enough to keep further accusations at bay. She takes a few more gigs, for old times sake, but they find themselves being pulled away from the pressures of Night City. Too many bad memories, too much ancient history written into every broken brick, every slab of concrete. The number of niches they could choose to visit at the Columbarium is depressingly large and it's hard to look around and not see the absences of the people they once knew. In her slumber, Kerry and Johnny held a funeral for Rogue, but they didn’t know who to call so it was just the two of them. Kerry didn’t even know her all that well, but he was also the only person Johnny had to bring along. V can tell it weighs on him and so she doesn’t press for details.

She was afraid, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that he would still leave her behind once the matter of her impending doom is put to rest. The reality is in fact the complete opposite. Where V goes, Johnny follows. At first she’s worried that he has nothing else to do and is sticking close out of lacking any alternative, but he just tells her it’s because he doesn’t want to be anywhere else. His days of performing are behind him, and there is no Arasaka left to burn to the ground. In the moments where he’s not beside her, offering a running commentary that now everyone is privy to, he visits Kerry. They fight still but the bond between them is stronger than ever. Her role in that makes her smug, but she keeps her cheeky grins to herself. Johnny’s no help during gigs, choosing to stay in the car and berate her for being terrible at shooting, but she knows he keeps an eagle eye on the cameras she hacks to warn her of any upcoming danger. V asks him to come along, but he says he’s too old to be firing at goons, and is totally disinterested in her “creepy little spider” way of doing things. He lets her keep the jacket but takes back his gun. The dog tags never leave their home around her neck. For the sake of fairness, or so V tells herself, she gives Johnny the bullet necklace Vik had made for her all those months ago. It too is a permanent fixture between them, only this time it’s nestled beneath every shirt he wears.

They still scream at one another, but most matches end in aggressive sex against whatever surface they can pin themselves too. He’s still unrepentant in his appraisal of other people, only now he does it exclusively to get a rise out of her. More often than not, it ends in her sucking his cock in whatever dark corner they can find. Her keeps calling her kitten and sinks his teeth into her neck at every opportunity. She stops wearing underclothing unless she’s on a gig because it’s just easier that way. Never in her life has she been fucked so consistently and so well. They sport near permanent marks from one another in various places along their skin. 

When he cums, he often whispers ‘I love you’ in her ear on repeat like a prayer and it never stops making her heart skip.

Her friends move on, they have lives beyond the scope of her own now that she’s no longer rapidly reaching the end of her existence. Panam and the Aldecaldos leave for parts unknown, Judy starts a life in another state. River meets a nice girl; Johnny refuses to go over to say hello. She needs no tether to feel the jealousy radiating off of him like fire, but he makes no fuss when she goes alone. He fucks her so hard that night, she can barely walk the next day. Kerry is their only constant, but he is on tour more often than not. Vik and Misty endure, and she’s pretty sure they are slipping into a kind of domestic, albeit platonic, partnership. It’s nice, because there is no one more deserving than a new start than the two of them, but V says nothing out of respect for their privacy. Life in Night City seems to be drawing to a close and one day, they wake up and, aside from Misty and Vik, the only people they know in the city are each other and the ghosts forever living on the edges of their peripheral. 

In the end, they crowd into Johnny’s ugly car that he refused to stop using and go. She leaves everything else, including Jackie’s beloved bike, to Vik to give to whatever idiot street kid wanders into his clinic next. V has no idea what life they can hope to build beyond the endless cacophony of Night City, but she’s excited to find out. Neither of them possess life skills not expertly honed for violence and fire, but she knows now that they are capable of growth, both together and alone. His silver fingers weave through hers as they leave the neon glow in the distance, and that sharp something purrs from its permanent home in her chest. V hopes it never fades away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ gosh-emperor on tumblr  
> @ feralvibes on twitter
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.  
> <3


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